Persistence Pays Off
Mary Lou Lyons Illustration Essay Final Draft
My Persistence as a Working Mom had Paid Off
The concept of persistence has been a defining lesson throughout my life. Even as a child, I always tried to establish a good example of perseverance to my younger siblings by maintaining good grades in school. As I grow older, the more I realized the significance of the word persistence; that is never giving up in overcoming obstacles and challenges that life would bring because after all, persistence is the key to success. As I took the responsibilities of being a wife and a mother of two children living in a foreign country, in Japan, I learned how to make a situation better by deciding to be a working mom to increase the income in my household. I knew that my persistence paid off by having a strong determination, by having an attentive approach to customers, and by taking a risk in financing to create my own Filipino grocery store. First, by having a strong determination, I looked at myself and made no excuses for all my weaknesses, such as waking up early in the morning, leaving the house with no trace of vanity or being annoyed with the difficulty of adjusting to another language. In 1997, when I realized that there were few stores in Tokyo, I grabbed the possibility of working part-time by selling what Filipinos there would miss from their country like dried fish, canned foods, cooking ingredients, and ready to eat native dishes that I would cook from 4 o’clock in the morning. It was tough carrying my commodities in a van with my two children, who were then six and three years old as we would head to the church’s parking lot every Sunday morning and would
My Persistence as a Working Mom had Paid Off
The concept of persistence has been a defining lesson throughout my life. Even as a child, I always tried to establish a good example of perseverance to my younger siblings by maintaining good grades in school. As I grow older, the more I realized the significance of the word persistence; that is never giving up in overcoming obstacles and challenges that life would bring because after all, persistence is the key to success. As I took the responsibilities of being a wife and a mother of two children living in a foreign country, in Japan, I learned how to make a situation better by deciding to be a working mom to increase the income in my household. I knew that my persistence paid off by having a strong determination, by having an attentive approach to customers, and by taking a risk in financing to create my own Filipino grocery store. First, by having a strong determination, I looked at myself and made no excuses for all my weaknesses, such as waking up early in the morning, leaving the house with no trace of vanity or being annoyed with the difficulty of adjusting to another language. In 1997, when I realized that there were few stores in Tokyo, I grabbed the possibility of working part-time by selling what Filipinos there would miss from their country like dried fish, canned foods, cooking ingredients, and ready to eat native dishes that I would cook from 4 o’clock in the morning. It was tough carrying my commodities in a van with my two children, who were then six and three years old as we would head to the church’s parking lot every Sunday morning and would