Is It Better To Live With Limitations Or To Believe Anything Is Possible?

When facing the stark challenges of life, it is often useful to believe that one can succeed without set limitations. When John D. Rockefeller found himself on his father’s farm, he did not let that stop him from seeing the larger things he could achieve in his life. Had Rockefeller not set forth bigger dreams and visions, he would have been just another regular man in the streets of New York. Realism often impedes the potential for great and infinite success and with an excess of overly realistic thinking some of today’s large and useful inventions would have never come about.

Limitless visions were John D. Rockefeller’s definition of success. From 1859, the year that oil was discovered to 1870, Rockefeller, Flagger, and Andrews had become the largest oil company in the world. It took them a mere 11 years to almost completely take over the oil and petroleum industry, yet their visions of success did not end there. As a child, Rockefeller, only dreamed about such vast success, and it is these unrealistic dreams that helped him to own the largest oil refinery in the world. Nothing else but the thought that he could achieve anything could have guided him to create an organized system for petroleum out of the chaotic mess the nation was in at the time. His dreams for success furthermore helped the entire economy by bringing an industrial revolution to the nation and making the government and the nation millions of dollars through the petroleum and oil industries. Had John D. Rockefeller been a simple realist, he could never become one of the richest men in the world.

Although some people might argue that realistic thinking leads the world to slow yet steady progress, nothing could be further from the truth. What would have become of the first airplane had the Wright brothers given up after the first crash of the Flyer? Powered by their desires to fly the first successful manned flight and a lasting vision of achievement, the Wright brothers effectively flew the first aircraft in the world on December 17, 1903. The harsh reality was that an aircraft that was heavy was going to be hard to control. Realistically speaking, they should have given up. An almost 200 pound aircraft was never going to make it off the ground. Why bother wasting time to try and figure it out? So had they stopped there, with realistic thinking in mind, today one would not be able to visit their friends in a different country without having to travel a few good months at sea. Many more notable inventions would either not have occurred, or would have come about much later in time had all their inventors been stark realists.

It is important to learn to dream of success and believe that one can achieve anything because it allows the world to progress forward and achieve great things. John D. Rockefeller did not let the fact that he had tremendous competition in the oil industry bring him and his vision of creating an organized and successful petroleum industry. In addition, the Wright brothers denounced realistic expectations, and set their dreams high toward the big goal of creating the world’s first successful manned flight. It is better to believe that one can achieve anything instead of setting limitations on one’s own future and limiting the possibilities for success.