Member-only story
The People Who Succeed
A non-fiction response to a weekly writing prompt for Positive Thinking Day, September 13, 2023.
This story was written in response to Chelsea Marie’s Non-Fiction Writing Prompts — Week Thirty-Seven under The Storyteller’s Vault.
“I don’t have the answers, not yet, but I do know this is certain; loving, running, and writing have one thing in common. The one who wins at any one of these is the one who does it on the days he doesn’t feel like doing it. The one who does it when it’s hard. The one who sweats through the difficult times and endures the pain: Those are the people who succeed.”
- Eric Jerome Dickey, Between Lovers
I remember being blown away the first time I read the above paragraph in the late Eric Jerome Dickey’s novel Between Lovers several years ago for a book club I belonged to in the early 2000s. It was one of those moments when the writer inside me said “Damn, I wish I wrote that shit!”
Although it reflected the thoughts of the novel’s nameless protagonist, I can envision any motivational speaker making this statement. The quote can be applied to any person’s field of interest and/or passion besides loving, running, and writing.