If you consider yourself a consummate failure, a bankrupt stooge, a veritable loser-then well this article is meant for you. It is time for you to stop brooding over your gargantuan failures and join the group of iconic losers, who managed to surmount herculean obstacles and overcome their disabilities to become shining examples for people like us, to follow. Loser – a tag that everybody fights valiantly to get rid of. Being labeled a loser is perhaps the worst feeling one might have. But readers if you feel that this very word perfectly describes every living aspect of yours, then please carry on reading. And before you start cursing your ancestors and your ill-gotten luck for your misfortunes; let us recap the astonishing tales of a few people, who I feel, personify the very spirit of hapless losers like you. TOP GUN First on the list is this dyslexic boy from Syracuse, New York, who was bullied and humiliated throughout his childhood by his friends and teachers for his disability. To hide his impairment, the boy had to attend a number of different high schools, but everywhere he faced the same sort of persecution and ridicule. He himself described his childhood years to be nightmarish and being constantly plagued by feelings of anxiety, frustration and despondency. He craved to learn but dyslexia was debilitating. He used to raise his hands frequently in the class just so that the teachers would notice him and give extra points for participation. Even though he tried very hard to hide his condition, his disability would soon be revealed and he would be sent off to remedial reading. Even doing simple homework was an arduous chore, which he never could complete without his elder sister’s aid. To add to his never ending woes, his parents got divorced even before he hit puberty. He alongside his elder sister Anne put up with his mother at New Jersey. His mother took up work at three separate places simultaneously just to make ends meet. He was constantly engulfed by feelings of hopelessness and despair at his condition.  He finally succeeded in clearing high schools but expectedly flunked his grads. Harboring aspirations of becoming an actor, he finally moved to New York but even here his condition proved to be an impediment. It was impossible for him to pass any audition as he failed to remember any script that he read. Invariably, there were times when the loser in him wanted to give up, but he kept on grinding as giving up simply wasn’t an option. He clinched his first major solo role in 1983 in Risky Business which helped him garner some attention. 1986 witnessed the release of Top Gun, which nearly grossed 400 million at the box office, and overnight this short dyslexic boy became the darling of the masses. Everybody knows him as Tom Cruise, who now is a global icon, a billionaire producer and Hollywood’s most bankable stars – a seemingly impossible feat for a poor dyslexic boy. He achieved all this because this loser just refused to simply accept his fate.   The Show That Changed Her Life The next stirring tale is that of a young girl who was born out of wedlock to adolescent parents at a ranch in Mississippi. Her mother, an 18 year old housemaid and her father, a freshman in US army soon parted ways after she was born and she was left in the care of her grandmother. Her childhood days can be summed up in three simple sentences, she was a female, she was black and she was very poor. However abject poverty could not stymie her brilliance and sharp intellect. For instance on her very first day at school, she wrote a note to her kindergarten teacher, expressing her desire to study in first grade and subsequently that very year she got promoted to third grade. When she was six she started living with her mother in a very shady and dangerous neighborhood in Milwaukee. There at a very tender age she was physically abused and repeatedly raped by her uncle and her cousins. Her mother, because of her odd working shifts and due to their downtrodden condition, was unable to do anything for her child. Repeated domestic abuse expectedly had an adverse effect on her life. She degenerated into stealing from others, constantly missing school and running away from home on a number of occasions. Bereft of any other option, her mother put her daughter in the care of her father. However, there was no end to this poor girl’s sufferings. When she was just 14, she fell pregnant and gave birth to a dead baby. Such traumatic, grief ridden childhood can potentially derail anyone’s life. But the little black girl refused to give up on her life. Her father managed to help her somewhat financially and through sheer perseverance and dogged determination, she became an excellent student at her school. She actively participated in the drama and debate clubs and soon managed to get a full scholarship at Tennessee University. Soon she was offered a job by Columbia Broadcasting system.  She worked at various television and radio channels in various capacities. In 1984 she became the anchor of a morning show named A.M. Chicago and as a result of show’s soaring popularity, two years later the show was rechristened as “The Oprah Winfrey Show” – and the rest as they say is history. Today she is the richest black billionaire, a global icon and considered to be a torchbearer for women emancipation. Achievements, which once seemed utterly impossible given her traumatic childhood, were only realized because this “loser” had it in her to take on the world. Such examples of “Losers” are abound today. Whether it is Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs (who was once unceremoniously booted out of Apple) or J K Rowling (who faced numerous rejections for her Harry Potter novels )- all of them faced immense personal and societal difficulties that could have destroyed them ,if they meekly accepted their fates. But they overcame their personal demons and proved their detractors wrong. So if your life is beset with failures- do not lose heart. Let each failure of yours, strengthen your resolve and your conviction that these failures are nothing but stepping stones to success.

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