My Inspiration Quote

The quote that inspired me the most to overcome a challenge in my life is a quote by Thomas A. Edison: "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” Edison’s inspiration is what keeps me going through difficulties and times when I cannot predict how things will work out. If not for inspiration from such great minds as Edison, I would have given up many times.

The statement above by Edison means that with every failure, there is some form of success. And if you do not give up, you might eventually succeed. Edison’s life and work exemplify this quote.

Edison was famous for his invention of the electric light bulb, phonograph, motion picture and camera, and his implementation of the principles of mass production. Yet, he only attended school for three months as his teacher called him “addled”, which made him not to go to school. His mother then home schooled him. Early in life, he set up his first laboratory in a railway boxcar, but later was thrown out of it, when his laboratory caught on fire. To earn an income, he sold candy and newspapers on trains. This allowed him to discover his business talents. At the age of 19, he worked as an employee for Western Union. He took night shifts so that he could spend time with his favorite past time, which was experimenting, but this eventually led to his employer firing him.

During the course of Thomas Edison’s invention of the light bulb, he tried various ways to make a bulb light up longer. He used various substances as the filament to make the light bulb light a little longer than before. But most of the time, things ended up in failure as the filament burned up.  Even though things were appearing to be a failure, he did not give up.  He tested over 3000 filaments before he came up with his own version of an electric light bulb.  If he had given up just because his first or second try ended up in failure, we might not be enjoying the luxury of not having to light up candles or fires to see in the night. This is a great example, which shows what this quote actually means. 

This quote helped me in meeting a challenge, which I had dreamed of tackling for a long time. The challenge was to learn Objective-C computer language and use it for programming and submitting applications for IOS to the Apple App Store. This quote helped me to stay inspired and helped me to accomplish my goal. Up to the date of writing this, I have submitted two applications to the App store - and only two weeks after I fully got the handle of the language.  Programming was one the most difficult things I had ever attempted because nobody was there to guide or lend advice to me. I was on my own when I did not understand what things meant or when errors came in the programs I created.  I stayed up late at night figuring out errors.

This quote really inspired me to not give up. I thought of Edison and his words when things wouldn’t work. Not only did this help me to not give up, it also helped me to learn from my failures. During the course of my studies, there were times that I did not understand what I was studying. On those occasions, reminding myself of Edison’s quote, I found some way of understanding what I was learning, even if it meant searching online, and reading and watching videos of programming demonstrations. Another time, during my first submission of an application to the App Store, I could not figure how to submit the application and I kept being met with error messages when I tried. I attempted many times and finally figured out what was wrong. Now, when I look back and think if I had given up the first time I did not understand anything about the language, I would not be enjoying the fun of programming for IOS devices. I accomplished my goal with the help of inspiration from this quote.

To conclude, inspiration comes from various sources, but the ones that are the most helpful for me translate to, “keep striving toward your goals”. And the one that inspired me to accomplish something that I always wanted was a famous quote by the great Thomas A. Edison.