Thomas Edison Failed Many Times Research Proposal

My voice teacher was relentless. One of those naturally gifted people with incredible range and a natural ability for tones, she sang like an angel, but I found her less than angelic. She was able to correct my tone-deafness and get me to sing on-key after almost an entire year of work, but then she fired me as a student. She told me that I simply did not have the type of voice that would ever make it in a high school choir, and that I should focus on another hobby. Those words devastated me. I had spent months mowing lawns, earning money for her lessons, and I had done all of the silly exercises she prescribed. She had helped me gain a voice that was tolerable, but that still was not pleasurable for most people to hear. I decided to stop my voice lessons and to restrict my singing to the shower.

One day Mr. Comacho, one of my clients, called me over to him after I finished his mowing his lawn. He mentioned that he noticed I had not been singing that day, and wondered if everything was okay. I told him about my voice teacher's comments and that I had decided to stop singing.He told me that he had an idea, and walked me home after I finished putting away his lawn equipment, where he asked my parents if he could borrow me the following Tuesday afternoon. On Tuesday, he took me to his older sister's nursing home, and had me sing to them. If this were a fiction story, I would describe how my voice was beautiful and enraptured the elderly and infirm people at the nursing home, healing them of their ailments. That did not happen, but my visit brought joy to some of them, and, by the end of the afternoon, we were singing together in a rag-tag chorus. My Tuesday visits became a regular activity, and I learned that I did not have to be the best singer, or even a passably good one, to be able to combine something that I loved with something good for other people. I believe that this experience will be particularly useful at USC, where students are expected to go out into the larger community and make a difference. I may not be the best at everything that I try, but that does not mean that I should give less than my best, or that I have nothing.....