I have observed that some people in this life are go-getters. I need to emphasize the GO in getter. They are the ones that come out of the womb a few weeks early, unannounced, and typically they cause quite a stir from that point in. Other kids at the playground are hanging from the monkey bars from their knees. The go-getter has first, bagged up all the sand in the sandbox and sold it off to The Nomad Society. Then, they’ve dismantled every one of the swings, convincing summer drivers they will need those chains for winter driving, selling the swing set chains too. Finally, they set up a little stand at the entrance of the park, charging everyone either a nickel to enter, exit, or just watch. Those are the kind of people we are talking about.
Their missions vary, however, from the self-absorbed to those types who are philanthropic in nature.
This morning I read about Elizabeth Cochran Seaman who was born on this date, May 5, 1864. Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father was Michael Cochran, a mill worker. He married twice. The first time he had ten children, the second time, five children. Elizabeth came out in the second batch.
From a young age, she wanted to seem more worldly and sophisticated, so she changed the spelling of her last name to Cochrane. She also wanted to be a writer, and submitted her first piece to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, by penning a response to an article they had run, entitled “What Are Good Girls For.” The article described a women’s “place” in life as bearing children, and keeping house. Elizabeth responded, passionately opposed. Her work so impressed the editor that she ended up landing a full-time writing position for the newspaper. She took on the pseudonym, “Nellie Bly.”
She wrote about women’s issues. Of course, the men of the day did not like to hear such things. So her column was canceled and she was given a writing assignment in Mexico, as a foreign correspondent. She was only 21 years old. This was 1885, for crying out loud. Bly spent six months there, writing, and her articles were later published in a book entitled — wait, it is catchy — “Six Months in Mexico.” Anyway, she ticked off the Mexican government and had to flee to country or face imprisonment for calling the country’s dictator, a “tyrannical czar.”
Can you see how she is going? And getting? It continues.
Bly quit the Pittsburgh Dispatch in 1887, moved to New York in search of reporting work, was penniless, when she finally took a job as an “undercover reporter” for New York World (which was Joseph Pullitzer’s newspaper).
Her assignment was to go undercover into an insane asylum and investigate. She had the difficult task of convincing them to admit her, legitimately. Undercover. She took up residence at a boarding house for women, quit sleeping, started making crazy accusations about everyone around her, and finally, they admitted Bly.
Committed to the asylum, Bly experienced the deplorable conditions firsthand. After ten days, the asylum released her at the New York World’s bidding. Her report, later published in book form as “Ten Days in a Mad-House” caused quite a huge sensation. So much so, it prompted the asylum to implement reforms and brought her lasting fame.
You’d think that was enough. But no. In 1888 Bly suggested to her editor at the New York World that she take a trip around the world, attempting to turn the fictional Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) into fact for the first time.
A year later, at 9:40 a.m. on November 14, 1889, she started the journey. It became a “contest” between her and another reporter from the Cosmopolitan. Bly was successful, and got all the way around the globe, traveling by herself, in 72 days.
Her life story continues, in different ways of exposing injustices and taking on other business ventures. But her life ended short, even for those days. Bly died of pneumonia at St. Mark’s Hospital in New York City in 1922 at age 57.
I would say she was a classic go-getter. I was not born with this gene, and I’m a little glad for that fact. I’m tired enough as it is already.
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“Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.”
– Arnold H. Glasgow
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“Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again.”
– Richard Branson
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“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”
― W.C. Fields
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