10 Short Stories About Never Giving Up When Everything Falls Apart

Before a pencil maker put each pencil into the box, he held it up and said five things to it.

"One. You will be able to do many great things. But only if you let someone else hold you.

Two. You will go through painful sharpening. You will need this to be useful.

Three. You will be able to fix your mistakes.

Four. What is inside of you is the most important part.

Five. No matter what surface you are used on, you must always leave your mark."

Then he put each one in the box.

Thomas Edison tried to invent a working light bulb. He tried thousands of materials for the filament. Bamboo. Platinum. Carbonized cotton thread. They all failed.

A young reporter asked him about it. "Mr. Edison, how does it feel to have failed 10,000 times?"

Edison looked at him. He didn't get mad. He smiled. "I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work. I'm getting closer."

Try 10,001 used carbonized bamboo. It worked. The world had light.

A single mom was on welfare. She was raising a baby in a tiny flat. She was writing a children's book on a typewriter at a café because her apartment was too cold.

She finished the book. She sent it to 12 publishers. All 12 rejected it. One said it was too long. One said no kid would read about a wizard.

The 13th publisher accepted it. They printed 500 copies. They told her not to expect much.

The author's name was J.K. Rowling. The book was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.

A farmer planted bamboo seeds. He watered them every day. The first year, nothing happened. The second year, nothing happened. The third year. The fourth year. Nothing.

His neighbors laughed at him. They told him to give up. He kept watering.

In the fifth year, the bamboo shot up from the ground. Within six weeks, it grew 90 feet tall.

The bamboo had been growing the whole time. It had been making roots. The roots had to be strong enough to hold up the tree it was about to become.

John Stephen Akhwari was a marathon runner from Tanzania. He fell during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. He hurt his knee and dislocated his shoulder.

He could have quit. The race was already over. The winners had already crossed the line. There were only a few hundred people left in the stadium.

He kept running. He limped the last several miles. He came in last by over an hour.

A reporter asked him why he kept going. He said, "My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race. They sent me to finish the race."

Arthur Boorman came home from the Gulf War with two bad knees and a broken back. The doctors told him he would never walk on his own again.

Fifteen years went by. He got heavier. He got slower. He almost gave up. Then he found a yoga video. He started doing it on his back. Then sitting. Then standing with help.

Six months in, he could walk across the room. A year in, he could jog. Then he could run.

He posted a video of his transformation. It got millions of views. He got letters from veterans all over the world. He helped some of them stand up too.

Colonel Sanders was 65 years old. He had a Social Security check for $105 a month. That was it.

He had a recipe for fried chicken. He drove all over the country in his old car, sleeping in it some nights, knocking on restaurant doors. He asked owners if they would use his recipe and pay him a royalty on each chicken sold.

He got rejected 1,009 times.

On try 1,010, a restaurant said yes. Kentucky Fried Chicken is now in 145 countries. Sanders died wealthy and famous, but he had been broke and unwanted at the age most people retire.

A climber was 50 feet up a rock face. She had been climbing for two hours. Her arms were shaking. She could barely hold on. The next hold was just out of reach.

She wanted to quit. Her belayer below her shouted, "You don't have to go anywhere. Just don't let go."

She held on. For 30 seconds. For a minute. Her shaking stopped. Her hand quit slipping. She found a tiny ridge she hadn't seen before. She moved.

She made it to the top. She told the story for years. Sometimes, she said, the answer is not to push forward. The answer is just to refuse to fall.

An old cobbler had been fixing shoes for 60 years. He worked in a small shop on a small street.

A young customer came in. He had a pair of cheap shoes that were falling apart. He had been ready to throw them away. "Can you save them?" he asked.

The cobbler looked at the shoes for a long time. He nodded. "I can save anything anyone is willing to bring me. Most people give up too fast."

Two days later the shoes looked new. The cobbler refused extra payment. He just said, "Don't give up on things until you've tried to fix them. That goes for shoes. That goes for everything."

A young bricklayer was on the job. He hated it. Every brick felt like a chore. He thought about quitting every day.

An older bricklayer worked next to him. The older man whistled. He smiled. He laid each brick like it mattered.

The young man asked him why he loved a job he had done for 40 years.

The older man said, "You think you're laying bricks. I think I'm building a home. Same hands. Same bricks. Totally different job."

The young man didn't quit. He worked another forty years. He raised his kids on bricklayer money. He still tells the story.