J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling (www.pinterest.com ())

The True Hero of Hogwarts

An unemployed woman sits in a cafe, furiously writing out something in her notebook. The woman sits back from her work for a second, and lovingly looks at her young baby lying besides her in a stroller, sleeping. She returns to her work, and continues to write her story. This women, Joanne Kathleen Rowling, would never in a million years have guessed that she would go on to become one of the richest women in the world, and that the result of her paper scribbles would become legendary. Rowling, most well known for writing the Harry Potter series, was born July 31, 1965 in a small town in South Gloucestershire, England ("J.K. Rowling" Biography Today). She always loved to write, even as a child. She wrote her first book, Rabbit when she was very young. Rowling's life changed for the worse when her mother got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Her mother died when J.K. Rowling was 25 ("J.K. Rowling" Encyclopedia). After her mother's death, Rowling suffered from depression for a long time. One day, however, she was riding on a train from London to Manchester when the idea for a book popped into her head. She continued to simply imagine up the story of a young, messy-haired wizard, as she was lacking a pen and too shy to ask for one. She started to write the first book in the Harry Potter series when she got home that night ("J.K. Rowling" Biography Today). She worked for a long time on her books, all while dealing with a divorce, suffering from depression, trying to take care of her newborn child, and constantly being rejected by publishers. But J.K Rowling got through all of her problems, heroically. Her strong resilience helped her continue to fight for her books and going through all that she did. When she finally did get her books published and became one of the richest women in the world because of them, yet she remained a humble and generous person, two more of her heroic traits. J.K. Rowling is a hero because of her humble nature, her extreme generosity with her time and money, and her resilience in getting through her hard life.

J.K. Rowling (www.firstpost.com ())

J.K, Rowling, despite becoming one of the richest and most famous people in the world, remains humble and modest about herself and her work. After spending years on her book and constantly getting rejected, Rowling could not believe it when all of her hard work paid off: "Finally, in August 1996, Christopher phoned to tell me that Bloomsbury had made an offer. I could not quite believe my ears. 'You mean it's going to be published?' I asked, rather stupidly. 'It's definitely going to be published" ("J.K. Rowling")?! J.K. Rowling literally could not believe when her agent told her the book was going to be published. She had worked hard for so long to get do just that, and yet when it did in fact get there, Rowling did not try to act like she had expected it. Instead, she showed how she really felt. Excited and surprised. She could have easily brushed off the good news and pretended like she didn't actually think it was that big of a deal, but instead she humbly showed that she was in fact, extremely happy. Rowling is not only humble about herself, however, she also shows her humble nature when she credits her success to luck, instead of herself: "Thanks to Harry Potter, Rowling has become one of the wealthiest women in the world. She is the first person ever to become a billionaire by writing books...'I am an extraordinarily lucky person, doing what I love best in the world'" ("J.K. Rowling" Biography Today). J.K. Rowling did not get to where she is today by luck. She got there by discipline and hard work. She knows that she worked hard and overcame challenges, and given how people usually take credit for things, sometimes even when they don't deserve credit, it's a wonder that she doesn't take credit for it all. It would have been easy for her to boast about how rich and talented she is, but instead she remains humble and doesn't let the fame and money change her. J.K. Rowling became extremely successful after her books were published. For a while, she was actually one of the richest people in Great Britain, and yet she didn't let her newly acclaimed renown and fortune go to her head. To this day, she remains humble and modest about her success.

Rowling's Charity, Lumos ( (funnyjunk.com))

J.K. Rowling also shows extreme generosity with her time and money. Her charitable giving is one example of this: "Having been feted as one of the world's richest women in 2011, she saw her fortunes depleted to such an extent that she is no longer a dollar billionaire...Forbes, which has produced an annual list of billionaires for the past 25 years, said that Miss Rowling's declining fortune was the result of her charitable giving, which had left a significant dent in her bank balance" (Prince). Giving even a little to charity is a very generous act, especially since money is not something that is easy to get, especially in today's economy. It requires hard work to get money. J.K. Rowling is no stranger to hard work, and it paid off with her actually becoming "one of the world's richest women." However, she is no longer on the list of billionaires. Her loss of billionaire status is not due to lavish spending, however. She is no longer a billionaire mostly because of how much money she's given away. Millions and millions of dollars of her money went to help people she didn't even know. Rowling has not only given to charities, however, she has actually made her own: "In 2005 J.K. Rowling co-founded the charity Children's High Level Group. In 2010, it turned into Lumos. "it now works to end the systematic institutionalisation of children across Europe and help them find safer, more caring places to live"("J.K. Rowling." J.K. Rowling. N.p.). Creating a charity is no small task. It takes time, effort, and money. J.K. Rowling has already spent so much of her time working to write and publish books for children, and yet she still continues to help kids and make their lives better. Generosity is when someone gives more than is expected of them. Most celebrities simply donates a little bit of money to people, which is fine. But Rowling takes it a step further and actually helps found an organization to make children's lives unbelievably better, by giving them a safe home. J.K. Rowling just keeps giving and giving. She gives people joy through her books, she gives charities millions of dollars, she gives kids safe places to live, and because of all this, she gives children better lives.

J.K. Rowling Young (pixshark.com ())

J.K. Rowling also shows incredible resilience to get through the many struggles she faced in her life. "Joanne settled there as well, living on the $103 a week that she got from welfare, while struggling to care for Jessica and obtain a license needed to teach English...She busied herself writing about Harry, while struggling with depression and awaiting her divorce" (Harmon). J.K. Rowling did not live an easy life. Depression, even without anything else in your life, is hard to go through - and she couldn't even afford medication. She was alone, jobless, and working hard to care for her newborn daughter, Jessica. And yet she still managed somehow to make it work. She fought through the pain - writing a book and working to get a teaching license. Going through all she went through while still maintaining the passion to work on not one, but two things at once is a clear example of the strong resilience demonstrated by J.K. Rowling. However, even after working so hard for so long, Rowling still had to be resilient to deal with all of the rejection she faced: "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was sent to a number of publishers initially, all of whom rejected the manuscript. It took a year before her agent, Christopher Little, could make the call that J.K. Rowling had been waiting for" ("J.K. Rowling." J.K. Rowling. N.p.). After putting all of her time and effort into writing this book, and it being rejected multiple times, it wouldn't be surprising if she had just stopped out of frustration. Instead, she kept at it, repeatedly springing back after each dismissal and trying again. Resilience is the ability to recover from difficulties faced in life. Rowling being rejected about something she had worked so hard on could definitely qualify as "difficulties," and shaking it off and submitting her work to someone else could easily be classified as recovering from said difficulties. J.K. Rowling showed remarkable resilience all throughout her life. She remained focused on her work even when it seemed the world was against her, and she continually sprung back after each rejection she faced.

J.K. Rowling (www.twirlit.com ())

Throughout her life, J.K. Rowling shows an extremely humble nature, remarkable generosity, and a strong resilience. Despite being one of the most famous and successful women in the world, she never let the fame and success get to her head. She constantly gives her money away, helping people because she knows what it's like to have a hard life, for she herself struggled with many problems before getting where she is today. Her journey could be an inspiration to anyone going through a tough time. In response to a fan's question "Do you believe in fate?", the author responded with, "No, I believe in hard work and luck, and that the first often leads to the second" ("J.K. Rowling." J.K. Rowling. N.p.). This is very inspirational and important to me, personally, because fate is not something someone can chose. The thought that everyone is being controlled by something that supposedly can't be changed can be an easy way out of taking responsibility for actions. Someone as successful as J.K. Rowling saying that she got where she did through hard work, rather than just thanking some higher power for putting her in that position of success, and acknowledging the fact that luck is also something that needs to be worked for, is truly inspirational, at least to me. In my opinion, everyone needs to realize that as life goes on, it's important for people to continue to work for what they want, and that if they work hard enough, anything is possible. Everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, can accomplish what they want, as long as they put enough effort into it. Who would have guessed that the middle-aged women in the corner with the notebook would go on to become such a hero? She may not have seemed remarkable, with her messy hair and her crying baby, unemployed and living off of welfare, but she would get through it and end up being one of the most famous women in the world. Now, the hard times in her life have passed, and what happened to her messy-haired wizard has happened to her. "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well" (Rowling).

Works Cited

Harmon, Melissa Burdick. "J.K. Rowling: The Real Life Wizard Behind Harry Potter. Biography 7.9 (2003): 82.

Biography Reference Center. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.

"J. K. Rowling." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Vol. 25. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Biography in Context. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.

"J. K. Rowling." J. K. Rowling (Biography Today) (2010): 1. Biography Reference Center. Web.

30 Apr. 2015.

"J.K. Rowling." J.K. Rowling. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.

Rowling, J. K., and Mary GrandPré. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Vol. 7. New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine, 2007. Print. Harry Potter

Prince, Rosa. "Forbes List: JK Rowling Fortune under Vanishing Spell." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 07 Mar. 2010. Web. 06 May 2015.