Russell Wayne Baker was born on August 14th 1925 in Virginia, USA. He is an American writer winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1982 for his autobiography “Growing up”. Apart from being a writer, he was a columnist for the New York Times from 1962 to 1998. He is perhaps better known for introducing the TV program “Master Piece Theater” from the PBS Network.
From his autobiographic story “Growing up”, the excerpt tittle “No Gumption” presents the main idea that:
<u>Trying and trying until you get it right might not be the best attitude for every situation. There are occasions where there is no point in exhausting ourselves into pursuing something that we do not like, have interest in, or have the talent for. It is true that being an easy quitter is never good, but there are times when the best you can do is redirecting your efforts to better causes. There are things for which we are done and there things for which we are not. The key to success is identifying what we are done for.</u>
The sentence from the passage that best exemplifies the previously presented main idea is:
<em>“My mother finally concluded that I would never make something of myself by pursuing a life in business and started considering careers that demanded less competitive zeal.”</em>
<u>When the mother realizes that her son has tried and tried really hard to make things work with the business world and failed, she starts to acknowledge that her son might not be done for selling and that maybe there is something else he can pursue and succeed in. </u>
