There is a famous legend in America.
A farmer bought a plot of land expecting to find diamonds and began digging.
He kept digging for a while, but no diamonds were uncovered.
The farmer gave up and sold the land to someone else for a few dollars. He continued his search for diamonds, thinking that there must be another place where they are buried.
On the other hand, the man who bought the land from the farmer dug a little deeper than where the farmer had dug. He found many diamonds just 10 centimetres below the surface and became very rich.
It is said that the farmer went on a journey in search of other lands and died on the way.
Like the farmer, we all have diamond deposits, but we often don't dig them up, or we give up immediately after digging, or we stop digging when we've almost hit the deposit.
Just when you think you've worked hard and are on the verge of success, you think you can't succeed here, so you go digging for diamonds somewhere else.
There is a saying of Kinjiro Ninomiya, famous for a statue of himself reading a book while carrying firewood.
The phrase "accumulate small to make large" means big things are a product of many smaller things. By incremental progression, larger things can be accomplished.
Even if you have great ambitions, you cannot suddenly achieve great things.
However, many people give up in the middle of the day because what they are doing does not lead to immediate results.
It is necessary to persevere instead of giving up in the middle.
How many people quit when all they have to do is dig a little deeper in order to find treasure?
I believe that the key to success is the ability to continue without giving up.
Translated by Yuki Naito
