In any field of endeavor, it is possible to make a significant contribution without first being strongly influenced by past achievements within the field.

Some argue that it is impossible to make a significant contribution without being influenced by past achievements instead of using one's creativity to devise something new. With the experience I've got, I strongly agree with this assertion that it's quite impossible to make a prominent contribution without being inspired by past achievements.

Not being affected by past achievements would be beneficial in a number of respects. First of all, without the restriction of the past achievements, people incline to invent something incredible which hasn't appeared before. In addition, people can use their imaginations to do whatever in their mind to achieve their dreams without limitation, like inventing cars, vessels, air planes, and so on. These inventions all show the result of how we, human beings, are rich in imagination.

However, without being influenced by past achievements would cause some difficulties, which might overshadow its benefits. First, with the past experiences, we are prone to use the fundamental and useful knowledge more effective to deal with a majority of problems we encounter during the path of trying to devise something. Besides, the past achievements give us the strong impetus to strive for our goal because the possibility of succeed exists when you realize that it was a person who have had done this before.

Finally, following the person who have access the peak of his or her lifetime and making use of experiences he or she have shared will preclude as many wrong directions as possible. For example, as an ardent fan of basketball, there exists lots of successful examples among the basketball league. The way how these players make their ways to the highest level of basketball will always be staying away from the enticements in your life, such as drugs, gambling, and something illegal. Because most of these basketball players lived in extremely terrible environments and were inspired by the earlier players' experiences in the league.

Therefore, I think it is not possible to make a momentous contribution without the experiences and achievements in the past for the reasons I mentioned above.