I keep wondering and asking myself, “How can I make a difference in this world”. Neither am I as clever as Albert Einstein to discover new theories nor kind hearted like Mother Teresa to sacrifice my entire life to love and serve the unloved. After reading the biographies of two famous authors Charles Dickens and Frederick Douglass, I felt I could make a difference too, by making small sacrifices and conquering my attitude.
Charles Dickens had an unhappy childhood, his father was so deeply caught up in debt that he was sent to prison. His mother couldn’t afford to look after little Charles, as a boy there were days when he had no food to eat and most nights he slept on pavements. He worked hard in a warehouse and studied at the same time. During his rough years he always told himself that this would not be his life forever. By the age of nineteen he became a newspaper reporter in the House of Commons. He began writing articles on “London Life” known as “Sketches by Boz”; it was so popular that publishers bargained for the series. Charles Dickens literary works include Oliver Twist, Tale of two Cities, Christmas Carol, Nicholas Nickleby etc. He is considered to be one of the world’s greatest writers and educational reformers.
Frederick Douglass was an African born into slavery. He wasn’t sure who his father was, his mother was slave traded shortly after his birth, so he never got to know her in person. At the age of five he worked as a household servant. When he was twelve he was leased to his master’s relative. For a while, the white mistress of that household taught him to read. When no one was around the house, Frederick secretly copied notes from his master’s son’s practice books. One thing he did know from his early age was that he would not be a slave his entire life. He wrote in his book that he learned to read and write in the only way possible for a slave, “He Stole Knowledge”. At sixteen he was leased out again to a very hard task master, he suffered beatings every single day, one day he resisted and tossed the man on the ground and fought him, an act unheard of in the slave community. Couple of years later he escaped slavery and wrote the book “ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which made him internationally famous. He started two antislavery newspapers called “North Star” and “The New National Era”. He served as the United States ambassador to Haiti from 1889 to 1891. He fought for the civil rights to be given to the blacks and campaigned for the right of women to vote.
There is so much we can learn from the lives of these two great men. They did not try changing the circumstances that prevailed around them; instead they changed and acquainted themselves to fight those circumstances. Right Attitude is all it takes to make a Difference.
