When he was
a little boy his uncle called him “Sparky”, after a comic-strip horse
named Spark Plug. School was all but impossible for Sparky.
Perfection is not attainable, but
if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.-Vince
Lombardi
|
He failed
every subject in the eighth grade. He flunked Physics in high school,
getting a grade of zero. He also flunked Latin, Algebra and English. And
his record in sports wasn’t any better. Though he did manage to make the
school’s golf team, he promptly lost the only important match of the
season. Oh, there was a consolation match; he lost that too.
Throughout his youth,
Sparky was awkward socially. It wasn’t that the other students
disliked him; it’s just
that no one really cared all that much. In fact, Sparky was astonished
if a classmate ever said hello to him outside of school hours. There’s
no way to tell how he might have done at dating. He never once asked a
girl out in high school. He was too afraid of being turned down… or
perhaps laughed at. Sparky was a loser. He, his classmates… everyone
knew it. So he learned to live with it. He made up his mind early that
if things were meant to work out, they would. Otherwise he would content
himself with what appeared to be his inevitable mediocrity.
One thing
was important to Sparky, however — drawing. He was proud of his artwork.
No one else appreciated it. But that didn’t seem to matter to him. In
his senior year of high school, he submitted some cartoons to the
yearbook. The editors rejected the concept. Despite this brush-off,
Sparky was convinced of his ability. He even decided to become an
artist.
So, after
completing high school, Sparky wrote Walt Disney Studios. They asked for
samples of his artwork. Despite careful preparation, it too was
rejected. One more confirmation that he was a loser.
Take chances, make mistakes. Pain nourishes your courage.
You have to fail in order to practice being brave.- Mary
Tyler Moore |
But Sparky
still didn’t give up. Instead, he decided to tell his own life’s story
in cartoons. The main character would be a little boy who symbolized the
perpetual loser and chronic underachiever. You know him well. Because
Sparky’s cartoon character went on to become a cultural phenomenon of
sorts. People readily identified with this “lovable loser.” He reminded
people of the painful and embarrassing moments from their own past, of
their pain and their shared humanity.
The character soon became famous
worldwide: “Charlie Brown.”
And Sparky,
the boy whose many failures never kept him from trying, whose work was
rejected again and again,… is the highly successful cartoonist Charles
Schultz.
His cartoon strip, “Peanuts,” continues to inspire books, T-shirts and
Christmas specials, reminding us, as someone once commented, that life
somehow finds a way for all of us, even the losers.
Sparky’s
story reminds us of a very important principle in life. We all face
difficulty and discouragement from time to time. We also have a choice
in how we handle it. If we’re persistent, if we hold fast to our faith,
if we continue to develop the unique talents God has given us, who knows
what can happen? We may end up with an insight and an ability to inspire
that comes only through hardship. In the end, there are no “losers” with
God. Some winners just take longer to develop!