Abraham Lincoln, against all odds!

The 16th president of The United States, convey a story of fight against all odds that made him the president of the United States of America, and began the process to change the history of this country.

Some people said that the legacy of Lincoln now is fulfilled with Barack Obama, the first African American in the presidency, 143 years after he was murdered, the man who fought for the emancipation of the slaves, and the man who be determined to give to the slaves the right to vote; But now even more, one of the African Americans is now the president of the U.S.A..

Abe Lincoln, Was born in a poor family, he said that among his earliest memories he remembered a flash flood that washed away the corn and pumpkin seeds, apparently his mother was an illegitimate child, his younger brother Thomas die was he was a kid.

When he has 7 years his family faced a lawsuit against his farm in Kentucky, then his father moved to southwestern Indiana, living in a kind of a very primitive “cabin”.

His mother died when he was 9 years old! But quickly his father got married again and Lincoln have a maternal caring powerful figure; He just go to the school by “littles” as he used to said, but the history tell us that he used to have a long walks only to borrow a book!

Try different careers, and study on his own law, and when he was a successful lawyer he was recognized for being extremely honest.


He and his wife Mary Todd had 4 children (only one survive!), His wife has declare insane.

He suffered a lot of political and financial troubles, and finally he was murdered being president of the United States. But still he makes history, why a man with such amount of troubles had become one of the world icons in political history?.



Personally I don’t know if Lincoln wanted to do what he did, or if only follow the path that was open in front of him, but his legacy prevail, against all odds.

Sometimes the most smart thing is going against all odds don’t you think?, that applies in almost every field (financially, politically, Love).

Do not restraint ourselves in a little mental barnyard; If Lincoln would fulfill the predetermined destiny he would have been a farmer, maybe a poor one; instead, he is now a well renowned historical figure, so open yourself to a new challenges and opportunities, I am pretty sure you’ll find an amazing and exciting future regardless the troubles.

Social Darwinism

200 years since Darwin was born; a lot of dissertations pro and against his revolutionary theory, some people said: “ I’m not the evolving descendant of a monkey”, some people said, “everything works because evolution, and there is no god”, and that we are all atheists, The thing is some of us just go one god further” (Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins said this, and explained that all of us do not believe in gods like Shiva, Ala, Dionysius or any other, but only some people go “one god further” )

http://library.thinkquest.org/C004367/eh4.shtml, this place describes social Darwinism as follows: “Social Darwinism is a belief, popular in the late Victorian era in England, America, and elsewhere, which states that the strongest or fittest should survive and flourish in society, while the weak and unfit should be allowed to die. The theory was chiefly expounded by Herbert Spencer, whose ethical philosophies always held an elitist view and received a boost from the application of Darwinian ideas such as adaptation and natural selection.”



Jürgen Neffe said in an article published by the Jerusalem Post that this particular way of thinking seems to prevent that someone like Obama (bi racial and working class) reaches the most powerful political seat in the world. But he did it!, and the question is We really are evolving in our society in politics as we evolve biologically?

Here I go back to one article by Sigmund Freud: “Das unbehagen in der Kultur” who said basically that we tend to think the society has advanced and we are more civilized because we are technologically advanced, but that is a mistake.

The fact that now we have more science at our service does not mean we are becoming more civilized. Why?; Because we use that science for the same and basic principles of being uncivilized (destroy other countries, kill people, you name it).

During the past years a major improvements have taken place in our lives, the food, medical care, quality of life, but in the next 100 years it will be a skyrocketing increase of many technologies that will improve our lives and us in a greater way.

Chips inserted inside us that allow our brain speak a lot of languages without studying it; Genomic therapy and drugs that will cure diseases that right now we can, and The possibility to design your own babies disease free among other things (would it be possible to change the color of his eyes?, his contexture?, what would be catalogued as a disease and what not?

It sees like Brave new world from Aldous Huxley – Isn’t it?, now we have the ability to create and improve our world as a part of the new social Darwinism, and maybe some people would feel that with our current technology that allow us modify genetically our food to produce more and avoid the Malthusian crash (the food increase in arithmetic proportions meanwhile the people increase in geometric proportions).

Now we control the evolution right?, now we have become our very own gods?, there is a phrase very famous of a former Colombian politician: “The power for what?”, we have the power to increase the production of food, but still there are hundreds of thousands starving to death in Africa!, and if we can design our babies, ok it is going to be something great and the strong prevails, the one with money (it starts to sound like this movie Gattaca also right?), but who is strong?, George Walker Bush was a “strong” individual, would you see something positive that someone like he can design his babies and you can’t because it´s too expensive?, life is unfair and we are just like the Neanderthal, just that now we have blackberry’s? You tell me!.

About success and failure; Where to put the limit?

Adolf Merckle, German Billionaire, he lost hundreds of millions of euros in a bet against the Volkswagen stock, he lost and he commit suicide, he had an empire of roughly 30 or 40 Billion euros in revenues.

I was talking to one psychologist, she conducted a research about the people in the high positions within the companies and she told me these are the most dissatisfied people ever, even if they are VP’s, they felt like nothing, “they can’t get satisfaction” they always wanted more.

Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, 65, invested 1.5 billion of their customers in the madoff’s ponzi scheme, Alex Widmer, 52, work at Julius Baer, they said (his dead is not related to bank issues), Kirk Stephenson, 47, he lost his Money, by investing in UBS shares (this shares were used as a collateral “The UBS shares were put in a Lehman Brothers Holdings account with a proviso that allowed Lehman to use the assets as collateral”) (info from wsj.com) so he lost everything, and he kill himself.

So, if you loose Money you should kill yourself? We are what we have?, it is necessary to have things and income to be a person, you need to fulfil your needs like in the Maslow pyramid of needs, but when you are above that and you have fulfil pretty much all of your needs, maybe the only need that you need to fulfil is your ego, or the need to show more status.

Why people like Bill Gates get evolved in philanthropic activities trying to cure Malaria, and this guy just kill himself?, why?, maybe they have 2 different ways of see the life!

Merckle inherited his fortune and he make it grow over the years, Gates, built his own empire, and this is a big difference; usually when the self made man face troubles he recovers because they learn how to make money starting from nothing, but when a person who inherited his fortune lost Money, they didn’t know how to Start from zero.


I personally believe this is an important distinction that you must do, in order to learn from failures, and not overreact like this guys! What do you think?