My Genuine Success Anisha Patel

I shuddered. Chills raced down my spine. My arms and legs were suddenly covered in goose bumps. I read the quote once again. âTo leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.â? The intensity of Emerson's quote resounded in my head over and over again. It was eerily familiar, as if said to encompass my core values. Immediately, my mind raced back to the time my values began to form, my childhood in India.

Images of helpless desperation and utter hopelessness flooded my mind. Lepers with severed limbs wheeling around in makeshift wooden carts in desperation for some mobility; a small, poverty-stricken, malnourished child, afflicted with jaundice and clothed in a potato sack; abandoned children, limping and vomiting, unaware of the polio viruses multiplying in their bodies, eventually causing paralysis. And to think, all of these epidemics remain prevalent because of the lack of basic and inexpensive medical care. I knew deep inside, even then, that my success depended on making a commitment to ameliorate those lives. But how was I going to undertake such a daunting...