An inspiring book

Just this weekend, I was watching Michael Jordan’s Come Fly With Me video, another attempt to immortalize one of the best athletes ever produced. Like equally great sports icon and golfer par excellence Tiger Woods, Michael’s story was that of a young man, who driven by ambition and a quest for excellence, overcame his personal weaknesses and other challenges to become the greatest basketball player ever.

But is success all about ambition and competition? Going through Sketches, a compilation of essays written by Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) awardees, I am all the more convinced that there is no real formula for success. All the more because success means different things to different people. Some measure success in terms of money, power, position, influence. Others equate success with being able to inspire others to do good. It is really what one makes out of and how one emerges from life’s challenges that spells the difference between success and failure in life.

For 45 years now, the TOYM has remained the country’s most prestigious award, honoring those under 40 who not only have made incredible contributions in their respective fields of endeavor but have also served as role models for the next generation.

In Sketches, over 50 TOYM winners write their very own thoughts and experiences in essays that speak of who or what had given them the courage and inspiration to go beyond themselves to achieve the extraordinary.

According to TOYM Foundation president Butch Jimenez, a two-time TOYM awardee, "the heart and soul of the TOYM doesn’t end once the award is received, it merely begins." He says Sketches is TOYM’s way of sharing their stories to the youth with the hope of inspiring them to uphold excellence in their lives.

The book offers stories that have never been told before in such a moving and personal manner. Former Solicitor General Frank Chavez recounts having to ride with pigs and cows just to get to school and realizing that he was not even fit to ride among humans, vowed to finish his education and rise not only above poverty but become one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country. While educator Queena Lee-Chua tells the story of a fellow teacher named Zeny who spent her own money to give her students books and food saying, "How can I teach if my students are hungry and have no books?"

Each essay is a delight to read; some humorous, some nostalgic, and surprisingly, a lot, paying tribute to their parents for giving them the faith to rise above themselves. Indeed, the book is a collection of portraits of men and women with lives well-lived and lessons painfully- and joyfully-learned, giving meaning to its short yet apt title.

Sketches: Stories of Inspiration from the TOYM Awardees will be launched during the grand reunion of the TOYM winners on Feb. 27, 6 p.m. at the Dish in Powerplant, Makati.

For comments, e-mail at [email protected]