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Great Men and the Changing Seasons of Their Lives

Take Abraham Lincoln. We often remember him as the president who saved the Union and as the Great Emancipator. But before Lincoln enjoyed the fruitful spring of his tenure as U.S. President, he endured a horribly long and barren winter filled with failure after failure, and setback after setback. Lincoln lost six elections, failed in several businesses, lost his first love to typhoid fever, and had a nervous breakdown.But Lincoln had the wisdom and understanding to not incessantly kick against the pricks of life's failures. He had the humility to admit that he was "the subject of the divine force-call it fate or God or the 'Almighty Architect' of existence," and that he wasn't the captain that was guiding life's ship. However, Lincoln's acceptance of his lot in life didn't lead to docile complacency. While he didn't feel he was the captain of the ship, he didn't see himself as just an "idle passenger" either. Lincoln saw himself as a "sailor on deck with a job to do."1He kept trudging along. He continued to prune, graft, and sow seeds so that when the spring of his life finally came, he'd be ready for the harvest.

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13y ago

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