My seatmate seems right at home in the first-class cabin on our flight to Houston. A well-dressed, thirtyish organic chemist with an MBA, he's an account manager for a top chemical company.

But he tells me something suprising: " I grew up in newwark, New Jersey, on welfare. My parents had divorced, and I lived with my grandparents in a neighbourhood where more kids went to jail than to college. I went back to visit there last month and saw one of my old friends - he's just been sentenced to three and a half years for dealing drugs. He told me, ' That's all we knew how to do.' And it's true. We never had any models for a way out."

So what made the difference between this account manager and his drug-dealing old buddy? " I was lucky. After high school my grandparents sent me to Texas to live with my aunt. I got a part-time job helping with some research. And I started to see that these Ph.Ds I was working for weren't much different from me. I thought, ' I could do this, too.' So I started to go to night school, and finally got my B.A. in chemistry. Once you know what you want and see that it's feasible, you can figure out the steps you have to take. Then it's just persistence that gets you there."

And his old friends? " Those other kids gave up on themselves. They thought they didn't have what it takes to go to college. The only way they knew how to get respect was with a handgun."

A lack of initiative typifies those who feel a certain hopelessness - that their best efforts won't really make a difference. So, like the chemist's childhood friends, they don't push themselves. They see themselves as victims or passive pawns in the game of life, rather than master of their fate. The chemist's resilience may have owed more than he realized to the character lessons learned from his grandparents and aunt, but whatever its roots, those with initiative feel their own actions determine their future. These attitudes, in turn, determine how well we can deal wiht hardships and vicissitudes in life.
Those who lack initiative are most likely to give up on themselves - and anything they do. But with initiative combined with hope and perseverance you can achieve whatever you want to.