How to Succeed in Adverse Conditions

Born a Crime is a book published by Trevor Noah in 2016. It reveals how a person can be prosperous after facing adversity in life. It mostly discusses his upbringing from the day he was born, i.e., the struggles he and his family had to face and what inspired him to be successful. In his book, he depicts various indicators of how individuals excel when confronted with potential challenges, as well as the response he wrote in response to hardship in order to attain success. Trevor was born by a black Xhosa woman who conceived him from a white-Swiss-German man, at Trevor's time of birth, it was an abomination in South Africa for a white man to marry a black woman moreover siring a baby. Trevor’s mum and dad had to separate as being born from a European dad, and an African mum would only see the two parents convicted for almost five and four years consecutively as per the Immorality Act of 1927.
Factors Influencing an Individual to Succed
South Africa was experiencing a tough time of apartheid rule where he creates awareness of how the whites would deploy different tactics to ensure that the blacks were divided in opinion hence ruling them. The whites would group the blacks into various groups that received differentiated favors and privileges guaranteeing a useful divide and rule method of leadership. When Nelson Mandela was released from jail, the blacks were happy but failed to govern the country as self-interest developed into their parties along tribal lines majorly between the ANC party comprising of the Xhosa and other minor tribes and the Inkatha of the tribe of the Zulu.
Trevor’s mum portrays his most significant symbol of motivation towards his lifetime success as she was always there for him to guide and nurture him through thick and thin to the man he is today. She raised him single-handled and would sometimes take him to the grandmother who would sometimes restrict him from going out to play with the other kids because of the fear of him being grabbed by the police due to his skin color. The theme of resilience is seen in almost the entire memoir; it begins with Trevor’s mom whom despite being a black woman, she never stopped learning and working hard until she got herself a secretariate job so that she would be in a position to take care of her and Trevor. She is seen all over the book as a dedicated, humble, honest mother who has an engagement to foresee her son goes to church, school and ensures that Trevor is disciplined.
How these Factors Help an Individual to handle Adversity
Trevor’s mum is ambitious and does not care how much she is willing to take as long as she and the son get the best she can do to be the best mum for her son. We are shown how the church was a valuable aspect of the mom’s life. Her spiritual being is related from her mother, and she passes the same characteristics to the son. She goes on to be open about the word of God and makes sure that she takes her son with her to different churches classified by the three primary races in South Africa. The whites had their place of worship, the mixed blacks and whites theirs and the black Africans theirs as well. Noah’s mum would never let a single church day pass without going to worship despite having mechanical issues with her car, lack of minibuses to take them to the church which made them walk for a very long distance before accessing one. She provided an avenue for her son to develop a positive character of being resilient towards life. This situation is comparable to the Upper Darby School District where the leaders faced daunting challenges decided to dedicate resources and time to a very ambitious character education policy in pursuit of the belief they had about character. The leaders believed that character learning awareness and a positive environment in the school are essential to reducing indiscipline cases in their education, therefore, leading to improved performance (Perkins & Duckworth pp.16-20).
Trevor’s mother always made sure that her son would know and do the right thing and would punish him without hesitation whenever for any wrongdoing. The effects of mom’s strictness character and responsibility transformed Trevor to think and act critically, wisely, rhetorical understanding of knowledge and flexible which are some of the essential aspects of the habits of the mind of an individual looking forward to being successful (CWPA, NCTE & NWP). It is also shown that she provided her son with the necessary framework to achieve success by teaching Trevor six different languages English included enabling him to survive any region of the world. Learning these various languages is a measure of the mum’s desire for his son to be fortunate as he lives and works in the US fulfilling the ambitions her mother had.
Trevor was a boy full of energy that if not well groomed, he would have ended using it for the wrong purpose. Time to time we see his childhood having a “Tom and Jerry” kind of relationship with his mother especially when he did not do what is expected. His free nature is flashed out when his constant cat and mouse chase when his mum wanted to punish him for being notorious management to give him a chance to improve his athletic ability, and Trevor would receive a reward regularly for the champion of Maryvale Sports Day. Nobody including himself knew that trying to run away and dodging the mum plus the neighbors when he grew up and became faster would enable him to become successful in sports at his school. The efforts she made in managing the son to be a disciplined boy did not limit Trevor, and he did use the disciplinary runs and turned them to a more useful thing that the mom never anticipated (Pink, pp.31-37).
Trevor’s mum was strong-minded, proactive and curious when a child thinks that the mum is doing certain positive things because they believe you care about them and they turn out to echo their efforts and become successful (CWPA, NCTE & NWP). She is seen to study skills that her race would not be allowed to get employment from, luckily her determination did not go in vain as she managed to secure a job and work at her husband’s business. Her personality molded Trevor to what he is today. She kept on striving and thriving through the apartheid era and taking good care of his son despite fighting against the oppression the blacks faced in South Africa. Noah success is an evident mastery of the resilient efforts made by the mum when she struggled to raise him single-handedly (Pink, pp. 31-37).
Trevor adopted a metacognition and developed knowledge of conventions when he writes about the mother being spiritually stable in all the challenges that arose. He uses humor and explains how his mother would insist and get him to go to school even when the rioters in the neighborhood were demonstrating violently of the oppression they faced. The motive behind her when he asked her why is she going alone against a crowd of many rioters. Trevor's mum would confidently answer that she knows that she is never alone but walks guarded by the angels of God surrounding her. That is why she is never afraid to get out of the house and take him to school as she goes to church or work. She is seen to be very courageous when she confronts the minibus driver and the passenger who wanted to clobber the Good Samaritan who had offered her and Trevor a lift to church. She handled the situation efficiently and managed to prevent a conflict. These acts of courage show her ability to intervene disputes and intellectually to act in a rational manner that offers Trevor Psychological support to achieve his success today. The scenarios he faced with his mum, with time makes him overcome the plasticity in his mind that the challenges they faced could not be changed and would somewhat cowardly stay indoors instead of going out where rioters were (Perkins & Duckworth, pp. 16-20).
The memoir uses Trevor’s mum to show us how people handle external obstacles such as his family being affected by racism that made her a single mum and how she persistently fought without giving up until she got herself a job. Trevor’s responses on adversity are significantly outlined when he grows, and the life teachings by his mum make him aware that adversity is inevitable and it did not mean that just because he was born in a harsh apartheid era that he deserved to succumb to the challenges in South Africa. Through his mum, his grandmother, the church and the school he uses these external resources to build his internal resources that enabled him to be successful against all the odds.
Conclusion
Finally, his mother is an example of an icon who had dealt and conquered adversity and served as a role model not only to Trevor but to any person globally who are struggling with adversity. Briefly, Trevor and her mum are the success accredited to the fact that they face a difficult time and Trever appreciates the way things run smoothly for him now. Decide whether to make it or break down through allowing you to learn and stay positive in adverse situations, have believed and be open for the worse conditions and face them courageously. Identify and associate yourself with the right-minded people who can help you and guide you handle life obstacles the way we see Noah’s mum helping his son grow morally upright and how teachers help students be determined and stick to positive thoughts with good intentions (Perkins & Duckworth, pp. 16-20).Cultivate your faith, character and be resilient which is shown to have helped them go through tough times while having less adverse effects on them. Lastly, accept that life has tough challenges and develop mechanisms to handle them efficiently in a fearless and focused manner towards finding our purpose and goals.





















Work Cited

CWPA, NCTE & NWP. “Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing”: The rhetorical and twenty-first century skills as well as habits of mind and experiences critical for college success. 2011.
Daniel Pink . “Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us”—Chapters 1, 4 and 5.Riverheadbooks 2009. Pp. 31-37.
Deborah Perkins-Gough and Angela Duckworth “The Significance of Grit” A Conversation with Angela Lee Duckworth (handout) September, 2013. http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept13/vol71/num01/The-Significance-of-Grit@-A-Conversation-with-Angela-Lee-Duckworth.aspx Accessed 12 Dec, 2017. Pp.16-20.