{"id":20660,"date":"2015-05-11T16:30:14","date_gmt":"2015-05-11T21:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=20660"},"modified":"2019-04-05T00:01:19","modified_gmt":"2019-04-05T05:01:19","slug":"john-lennon-had-wrong-ambitions-but-became-cultural-icon-anyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=20660","title":{"rendered":"Lennon had \u2018wrong ambitions,\u2019 but became cultural icon anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/a>When John Lennon<\/a> was 15 years old, the smart people in authority at his school didn\u2019t see him as a world-changing artist.<\/p>\n

The headmaster wrote this on Lennon\u2019s report card that year: \u201cHe has too many of the wrong ambitions and his energy is too often misplaced.\u201d (Click the graphic above to see a larger version.)<\/p>\n

Although he was seen as intelligent, a science teacher wrote, \u201cHis work always lacks effort. He is content to \u2018drift\u2019 instead of using his abilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

In math, he missed the final exam and the teacher wrote, “He is certainly on the road to failure if this goes on.”<\/p>\n

His teachers clearly didn’t think much of him. By the accepted standards of the world, he was heading toward failure. Surely he would become a nobody — because he refused to fit into the box that the world was trying to push him into.<\/p>\n

Because of his work with the Beatles<\/a>, though, Lennon turned out to be a pivotal cultural figure<\/a> of the 1960s. He will be remembered long after everyone has forgotten those experts who judged him.<\/p>\n

So if people don\u2019t \u201cget\u201d you and they think you have the wrong goals and they think you’re misusing your energy, they might be right. But they might be wrong.<\/em><\/p>\n

You might be the next John Lennon of your chosen field.<\/p>\n

Don’t give up your chance to be yourself. You might change the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When John Lennon was 15 years old, the smart people in authority at his school didn\u2019t see him as a world-changing artist. The headmaster wrote this on Lennon\u2019s report card that year: \u201cHe has too many of the wrong ambitions and his energy is too often misplaced.\u201d (Click the graphic above to see a larger Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-5ne","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20660"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28193,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20660\/revisions\/28193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}