Act Like A Success Think Like A Success
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If you want to succeed, act like a success. Don’t wait until you’ve made it big before you do so. Do so right now, and everything will be just fine. If you’re wondering how I know this, it’s because I was able to find this information in the archives of one of my predecessors when he was a young man.
So if I’m being honest with myself, I suppose I have every reason to trust his words as well. Now then… that said, you need to understand one thing: ‘Acting like a success does not mean acting like someone who already knows what they are doing.
You must still strive to learn more about your field; even the most successful people can always do better. And of course, no matter how great a mind you think you may possess, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to see things in such high-level detail as the old man from whom I’ve borrowed these words. So… how should we go about putting those ideas into practice?
For starters, there are certain areas where you’ll be expected to spend much of your time: getting a good education and establishing yourself professionally. In many cases, a good education is likely to lead to a job in the same field.
However, if you have an idea of something you’d really like to do, then by all means try your best to make it happen—just don’t expect to do so right away. After all, you’ll need money for the first few years of your new career, and you may also have to take on temporary jobs during that time. All these are facts that you must consider if you want to become someone truly great in life.
On top of that, you must be able to tell other people what you’re good at and why you are special, and you’ll need a few pieces of information to do so. You must learn to use both the written word and the spoken word as well. (So long as you have access to them.) Most importantly, you must be willing to work hard—hard enough to impress even me.
Yes, it will be difficult. But when I look back upon my own life, I can remember all the times that I worked very hard for no reward or recognition whatsoever. The only reason I persevered was that I knew that someday the people who supported me would be happy to hear about what I did. So do your best—for you know, ‘the more you give, the more you receive.’
So if you want to succeed, act like a success.
The day I met my sister was a sad one for me. The year I spent before it came around, which saw the deaths of our parents, was perhaps the most painful time in my entire life. As I told her once, I had never been so certain of death as I was at that time.
For someone in my position to have the courage to make such a statement… I think there’s every reason to believe that this was indeed a time for real despair. I see that the old man is looking at me with concern… and I suppose that means I should say something now, though I’m not sure where to begin.
If you have no other choice, then you might want to consider lying to others. (This includes me.) Of course, you shouldn’t lie about trivial matters that don’t matter much, and you mustn’t forget what you promised when you were telling the truth.
In fact, you may even be able to call on your past for inspiration, especially if you’re a historian like me. I’ve often wondered what my ancestor, the first Speaker, would have thought of that idea.
While there are some things I am reluctant to discuss with you, I do find it easy to talk to my sister. Indeed, she was the only family left after my parents died. As far as I know, her life is almost identical to my own… which is to say that we both grew up in one of the largest cities on Earth.
Yes, you can call this coincidence if you like. But you’d be wrong to call it such. My mother’s family had an important role within the Empire, and my father was a distinguished figure in his own field of research. The family’s origins were indisputably noble. And so I think that makes it more than likely that she also received a good education.
My sister was the one who taught me that my parents were gone and that I should prepare myself for death as well. She told me that I could become anything I wanted; she told me to pursue my dreams. I still remember what she looked like.
But I can’t really tell you any more than that because I’ve never seen her face to face since that day. We speak only over a video connection, and I can’t help but wonder how many of the things I’m saying here are even true.
I don’t believe in destiny, but I do believe that chance is out there. So when you consider your own future, remember that you might be able to change things simply by trying hard enough—even if you’re not sure where you stand.
In closing, I would like to tell you something my grandmother once said: “If you are afraid of losing anything, then you won’t have much.” This was in reference to the time when a comet was about to strike our planet.
I must say that she seemed more concerned with that than I did. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘you’re alive.’ And as if to prove her point, she told me this one last thing. ‘Now, now, tell me… how can I become a comet?’
***
The world of the First Speaker was very different from my own. He spoke often of the ancient past, which made it seem like an entirely foreign land to me. And so it has been for generations before. But after reading my book, I realize that I still have much to learn.
There are a great many things about him that I simply hadn’t thought of. I see now that he was a very complex man. Indeed, I may have been unfair to him—not because of what he believed, but because of how I chose to portray his character.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not my job to decide who he was or what he was capable of, but rather to show what he actually did. So let me state now that I’m sorry. I’d like to think that I’ve learned from my mistakes.
My own life has been full of obstacles. Even so, I still want to be someone who does things better than the First Speaker. And I’m sure that you do too. You want to do better. And in order to do so, you must set aside your fears and take some risks—just as I did when I went on the expedition.
But we all need support to get us through those times when it seems that everything is going wrong. As far as I know, the First Speaker never had any children, and so I suspect he didn’t have anyone he could turn to for help.
Perhaps his sister could have helped him if only she’d been able to find the courage to do so. But perhaps she already knew too much for her own good. In which case, there is something else you might consider:
The world was not ready for his message, and so I fear that it will remain unheard by future generations. Perhaps you may be able to correct that. ‘After all,’ you might say, ‘we’re just humans.’
And you would be right… but maybe we can try harder.
***
The Second Speaker said that I should write down what I remembered, and then leave the place where I am living now. “You must tell your stories,” he said. I believe that he wanted to ensure that my memories would survive me. I see that now. For many years I have been afraid, but he was able to teach me the value of honesty and openness.
My mind has grown quiet since I learned what lies beneath our feet. You must know this—I mean, even if we hadn’t yet spoken face to face, you must have understood that I am a scientist. That’s how I think—that’s why I do the things I do.
So it came as no surprise when I finally heard the words “space elevator.” What I wasn’t prepared for was the fact that this technology existed long ago. And not only that, but this device was capable of elevating ships into orbit. Indeed, I’m certain that it would have worked, were it not for one small problem: I’m afraid to die.
For a moment, I thought he meant something else; that perhaps I would simply fail in my attempt to reach space. But that was not his plan. He explained that such a failure was not to be feared because it was inevitable. The key point is that the human species had already failed in its mission to reach the stars, so it would be impossible to do better than them.
He taught me about the ancient past. I listened intently. At times he would pause, and I knew that he was listening to my thoughts.
The First Speaker had many tales. I wondered which I might remember, and what their true purpose was. For now, I could only concentrate on the things he said—because I never expected him to continue speaking. It was always like that with him.
So much had happened between us that I couldn’t remember what he’d said before. But he would always seem to know what I was thinking. I wondered how he did this.
I remember that the first thing he spoke was about a man named Harrell. Harrell lived a great distance away, and so I doubt that we would ever have met had he not been a friend of the First Speaker. I also think that he may have been a descendant of my own people.
I can see that now. After all, he has very long ears, as well as a sense that makes his memory seem limitless. In fact, I think I understand the way the mind works better than anyone else I’ve known.
I was never able to explain this to my father, who would often complain about it, but I am convinced that what Harrell was telling me is true: “If there’s something you don’t understand, then there’s nothing that you know.” He had learned this from the First Speaker. The First Speaker had taught Harrell a great deal, and Harrell had been kind enough to share his memories with me.
As far as I remember, the First Speaker was trying to warn Harrell about someone who was hunting him down. I’m sure that Harrell had done something terrible, and so the First Speaker wanted to help him escape. I tried to get Harrell to come with us when we set sail for the stars, but he didn’t believe it was possible.
It was after that trip to the Second Speaker that Harrell left us. Even so, I would be willing to say that he had learned much more about the world than my father ever did. And I hope that others will hear him now.
He has made me realize that I’m not as clever as I used to be—that there are many things I should have understood but could not explain. He has shown me that if I were to die now, all the words I had spoken would be lost as if they’d never existed.
So I cannot leave. The First Speaker has given me this gift—the knowledge that I must survive. I must tell my story. It is the only way I can ensure that there is something of me left for future generations to discover. I owe this to them, and to you.
I was once asked if I believed in God, and if so, if there was anything I thought I had missed. I found it hard to answer. This was because I could see that no one was listening. They had all grown up thinking that I was some sort of monster; they had ceased to hear me. You must forgive me—but I couldn’t tell you the truth.
But that’s why I must write down what I can remember now. In fact, if I am able to do so without dying, then perhaps you may find this book on some faraway shelf someday. Who knows, perhaps your descendants will be curious about this time and place—and they’ll have access to more information than mine. I can only hope that they’ll understand that this isn’t the only way I know, or even the best.
At times, my mother tried to talk with me, but I would just make her angry. When I grew older and began to speak, I noticed that I had been blessed with a voice that could travel further and carry heavier thoughts than other humans. This was not by chance—it was the will of the First Speaker.
For all these years, I’ve heard a great deal about my people—how we lived and what we did, and how they think you should live too. The First Speaker had so many tales to share. But when he passed away, I lost myself.
I would look back at the way the world used to be, and I would see that everything was different from what I remembered. There were fewer of us. We lived in smaller places. Our minds were not as bright as yours. My father was once right when he said that our people had forgotten how to see. We were ignorant and foolish, and so we were easily frightened.
It’s true that I learned much from Harrell, and he showed me how to see the First Speaker’s work for what it really is. And in doing that, I understood that we have to change this planet into something better. It was the First Speaker who set out to make things new, and I can only hope that my mother and Harrell’s descendants are strong enough to carry on his work.
I believe that one day we’ll be able to speak the First Speaker’s language. Perhaps it won’t take many generations. Once we learn more, perhaps we’ll finally understand where my people came from. In fact, I think it’s possible that Harrell and I will find each other again.
If so, then I plan to ask him if there was ever any chance he might have been an ancestor of my people. I wonder why he didn’t talk about this—perhaps it was because he never saw you, and so he didn’t see the resemblance either.
But there’s no time for speculation, for dreams. There’s a world waiting to hear my story. I’m sure you’re thinking, “If he wants to tell me what I want to know, why doesn’t he just say it?” The truth is that Harrell couldn’t explain it very well, and when he tried to do so, my mind would close down.
I think that if Harrell was alive, I could ask him about this. He has gone far away now—he’s beyond our reach. I wish I had seen more of him before he passed. But this is the only way I can do his work justice. It’s almost time.
Once I’d thought of writing this, I found myself asking: Who am I? And who are you, that you have come so far to hear me? When I consider these questions, I feel as if I should be more precise. For it is not enough to know your name.
If I were to call myself the First Speaker, then surely you should ask me something like, “Who are you?” Or if I am to say that you must learn to listen, then surely you should ask what I mean by such a thing. You would want to know more.
This is why I need to tell you a few things about myself. At least, it is my hope that these stories will be true to the facts, even though they may not be everything you wanted to hear. When we meet again, I think it is likely that I’ll have some regrets.
But I have no choice—you will have to take the truth of what I’ve written as a gift. I’m not sure how much you will want to read it. The truth is that there’s a lot more I would love to say, but for this, I must first survive.
I’ll tell you a secret. I’ve heard from others—I don’t know how they know—that the people of the First Speaker’s home planet are not always like this. That at times they’re smarter, and that when they listen they understand.
They have names and faces. Their lives are shorter, but somehow they seem more intense than ours. We used to think them foolish because they were different, but we have learned so little ourselves in the years since they vanished.
And yet, we have reason to believe that they might still be out there—just as you are here. It’s possible that there are many worlds that my people never found. Perhaps one day our descendants will discover them, and see how very similar we truly are.
So, I have told you about my life. You will find some facts, I’m sure, that you disagree with, and there will be others I don’t mention that you think are important. And I don’t promise to explain every detail of my story, nor even those things that are most interesting to me.
You have to decide what you want to hear, and what you can trust. I would ask that if you do read my words, then you should look beyond the words, to what lies behind them. There is more to me than this old man. If I am to tell you everything, then it must begin before my birth.
You might say, “This is a long time ago. What difference does it make?”
But if you have been reading my words carefully, then perhaps you’ve already understood. It’s not that history begins at a certain moment; rather, history begins in the first moment. History, I say, starts now. This is how my mind works. I try to consider each things from every angle. I want to know the whole story, which is why I spend so much time pondering the past.
If you will forgive me for getting ahead of myself, then let me say: When I was young, I heard about you. That is, I heard of your presence in some far-off world. For years after that I had no idea where or how you could possibly be. So, if I’m ever to tell you anything useful, it has to begin with your arrival.
It’s been sometime now since we first saw a ship land on our planet. At that time, the First Speaker was just an old man. He lived in a village near the shore. Everyone knew that he had once been important, that he could hear thoughts and speak to the dead.
But they did not listen to him very often. Even his wife found it easier to avoid him than to ask what he meant by what he said. She was a simple woman who would rather have her family than anything else. And so she didn’t understand what it was the First Speaker wanted—or needed.
Soon, people stopped talking to the First Speaker entirely. Instead, they made their way down to the shoreline to watch a strange boat approaching. They called it “The Thing,” and some wondered aloud whether the gods of the sea had come to visit. Children ran screaming.
Some fishermen thought this might be the beginning of some new kind of disaster. Others were more likely to think that it was some sign of divine judgment. I don’t know if they saw the ship before the fire started. The thing is, I don’t remember hearing anyone saying anything until the flames had already begun.
That night the wind blew hard from the north, bringing clouds of dust that spread out across the world. It was as if a storm had arrived, but with the wind came something new—a scent like the smoke of a bonfire, or the smell of hot metal.
This is one of my earliest memories, I think of the smell and the feeling of cold wet sand squishing between my fingers. There were others around me. Some of them carried a basket on their back, while others were carrying something for the First Speaker.
I had been told that the men who brought him gifts always waited there at sunset, waiting for him to come to us from his house. I had also heard that when he emerged, he never spoke to any of them because he did not recognize anyone. Perhaps, in his mind, all of the people gathered along the beach were strangers, and they might be killed without remorse.
I had no idea how I could have ever been part of such an event—that was until the First Speaker approached me.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said, just before touching me. “You’ve done nothing wrong.” And then his hand touched my head—and I felt as though my brain was being washed. He seemed to be talking to me, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying, and the next thing I knew I was standing alone, staring up at him. I hadn’t realized until he turned around that I had been looking down at him.
That same night, I saw the strange ship departing, and as the sun set the following morning I went out to the shoreline to watch it leave. It was still dark, so I couldn’t see it clearly, but the wind carried the smell of oil, and the sand was burning my eyes.
But I knew that this was a sign, and when I looked back, the moon had already begun to rise, and the light of its silvery rays illuminated the land. The horizon glowed with orange and yellow. When it fully rose, I saw that the ship was on fire and that all around it there were other flames, rising in different places.
A few days later, I was summoned by the First Speaker. There were many others waiting there—a whole crowd of them, and some were old men like him. I hadn’t seen anyone else from my village, and I wondered what I had done to deserve a summons.
It had been hard enough just to find out that the First Speaker wanted to speak to me. I did not think that he would have chosen me simply because I had been near his house. I had heard that when he spoke to people, they didn’t always understand.
I listened to the First Speaker’s words, and I wondered if I should take offense, or whether he was mocking me. Perhaps I was wrong to be angry, but I could hear myself laughing as he explained how my life might change, and how I would grow up and live long years beyond the end of my time on Earth.
He was telling us that the next thing we had to do was to give our lives and that only then would we truly serve him. We must sacrifice our own needs for his purposes.
There was an old man who asked a question about whether all of humanity had to be saved, or if there could be some kind of exemption. The First Speaker said that we had been chosen by God and that we were all worthy of the same fate.
“We must save every person,” he insisted, “until the whole world is redeemed.” And even as he spoke these words, he touched us one by one and washed our heads with his hand.
Some of the other people there had been burned badly enough to be sent home, and when it came to my turn, the First Speaker washed my head without hesitation. My hair was matted and tangled.
His hands felt rough; they were like old sandstones, and he was saying words of power in a language I could barely understand. As he touched me, I wondered if perhaps this was a sign that I would never return to the village where I had lived until then. But soon after, when he was done, he said that he believed I might survive.
“You will come to me, and you will stay here forever,” he promised. Then he told us that if we did not obey, he would kill us, just like the men who brought him gifts—that we had to remember that they had tried to trick him. I didn’t understand why, but I was terrified because he was the First Speaker and I had always believed him to be wise and powerful.
It wasn’t long before he came again, and as before, he had come from his ship. Once more we were instructed to prepare ourselves for the journey, and he gave us the message of what was to happen.
He told us we must come to the world of our ancestors, which he described as a place of paradise. We were to find a place called Eden, where we would spend our lives. It would be an opportunity to see strange and wonderful creatures that no one else had seen, and to take part in a great event of transformation that would leave all of us changed, forever.
As the First Speaker spoke, his words were like those of a prophet who had foretold something that was not yet known. They were not promises or prophecies. This is how it was explained to me by the First Speaker’s men: “There are some things that cannot be expressed in words. You have only to see the proof—you must understand the signs.”
Sometime later, the First Speaker led me on a tour of his ship. As we entered one of the halls, he asked whether I could tell that the walls were made of metal. I knew them as soon as I looked at them, although they were as smooth as the walls of my village—metal, but without rust or corrosion.
The First Speaker said that we must bring this metal back to Earth to show everyone who might not believe it.
“Your mission is to deliver that metal, and that’s why I’m bringing you here,” he explained. “And when you return, there will be other missions. Every generation will send people into space, and they will build more ships that will carry us across the stars. We’re preparing for our destiny. Only in this way can we hope to fulfill what God wants for us.”
For many years I was told to stay out of the way because I was young and vulnerable. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized I had been made to look weak so that nobody would dare to attack me.
The First Speaker saw my face and laughed at my astonishment, telling me that he had seen that my heart was still beating. “I know that you have doubts and questions,” he said. He wanted me to see all the evidence of our civilization—to take part in this great enterprise of ours.
But he had no doubt that it was the right thing. In the days ahead, we would see our world change, and only then could we hope to serve him.
“I will tell you a secret,” the First Speaker said, as he turned from me. “My name is Caine.”
The First Speaker was no longer a prophet of God, but a king of men. A human being, with flaws. Some things never change.
The End