Every spring and summer we are excited at watching the high school baseball games. To win at the Koshien is a dream of all the high school baseball players. To accomplish their dream they practice very hard, although only one unlucky error may destroy their dream. Luck has something to do with success in the Koshien. However, our life is not so short as Koshien, and I believe hard work brings you to success in the long run. On the other hand success due to luck never continues so long. Today I will talk two success stories and one failure story to persuade that luck has nothing to do with success.

First success story is about my friend, Miho, who passed the entrance examination of the University of Tokyo. She had been brought up in a good environment: for example, her father had also graduated from the University of Tokyo, and her parents were rich enough to give her some private teachers. I had attributed her success to her fortunate environment until I visited her room. In her room were there so many notebooks even several months after the examination, and she said she could never throw them away because she had spent very difficult time with them. I understood she had studied very hard, then she had succeeded.

Second success story is about my three ex-co-workers with whom I worked as a sales staff in a company. They always worked hard: for example, they visited their customers more often than others, or they work longer hours than other staff. However they were not always the winners as sales staff. This is because "sales job" has a similar nature to the Koshien, which means it sometimes has to do with luck. Sometime a lazy sales staff luckily got a bigger contract than they did. Although in the long run they were the top sales staff. Therefore, I attribute their success to their constant effort that normal people can not do.

In contrast, I have a friend who failed his business despite his fortune from his parents. After having succeeded to his father's big business, he did not devote himself to his business, and he wasted his money in stock speculation. In the end, he had to close down his business.

In conclusion, I believe whether we achieve success or not depend on our hard work. We can succeed with hard work not only in examinations and business, but also in relationship with others, our marriage life, and in any other thing. The definition of success is different from each other; for example, someone does not think the pass of the examination as success, although we should always try our best for our own definition of success.