Challenges

Last Friday, Dr. Randy Pausch sadly passed away.

Dr. Pausch was suffering from a terminal illness. It was this that inspired him to write a book called The Last Lecture. Although Dr. Pausch knew that death was imminent, he did not allow it to stop him from fulfilling his dreams, it just motivated him into fulfilling them faster.

In this book, Dr. Pausch shared many of his life lessons. One of his most powerful lessons is that brick walls are there for a reason.

Dr. Pausch believes that brick walls, or obstacles, are there to challenge us to see how badly we want things. This has two purposes.

At just 32 years of age, Sean Swarner has faced and overcome many challenges in life.

At fourteen, Swarner was diagnosed with advanced Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Although the odds were stacked against a full recovery, Swarner achieved this.

At sixteen, doctors discovered a rare Askin’s tumor on his lung. Swarner was told that he had just two weeks to live.

However, after surgeries and treatment, Swarner survived this too.

Alison Bartlett has always lived photography. However, in 1979 she began to lose her site due to diabetes. In 1992, she lost her sight completely.

Alison, however, was determined that her blindness would not stop her from doing what she loved most, photography.

As Alison lost her sight, her hearing became stronger and she uses this to help her to hear natural sounds, such as the flapping of wings or a squirrel nibbling on nuts.

When Alison takes photographer, she usually has a friend who accompanies her to tell her rough distances of how far away that animal is, so that she can then focus the lens according to the distance. Her friends also help her to decide which photographs are good and which ones need to be discarded.

Shortly after winning the Masters in 1997, Tiger Woods was asked if he could win golf's Grand Slam by winning all four major tournaments in a year.

This was something that had not been done before in the history of the game.

Tiger Woods answered that this was possible as it only implied winning four tournaments in a season. He then said that it was important to make sure that you won the right four!

Victor Frankl was a renowned psychologist and the author of Man’s Search for Meaning, a book that has sold over 9 million copies worldwide and outlines Victor’s experiences in the concentration camps of the Second World War.

One part of Victor’s life story as a holocaust survivor is often overlooked, which is the fact that Victor did not need to suffer the torture of being taken to a concentration camp.

As Victor was a leading psychologist, he had been given an emergency visa to emigrate to America, where he would be safe and free to live a normal life.

In a beautiful poem, the Greek philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis writes about a butterfly trying to break through from the cocoon.

At first, the butterfly is trying to escape from the cocoon but the hole which it is trying to escape  through is far too small.

Trying to help the butterfly, Nikos takes a pair of scissors to make the hole bigger.

Once the butterfly escapes from the cocoon, Nikos expects it to gently fly away, however, this does not happen.

On the 29^th of May 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary became the first man to conquer Mount Everest.

However, it is important to realise that this was not Sir Edmund Hillary’s first attempt at conquering Mount Everest. He had tried to climb it in 1952 but could not reach the summit.

A few weeks before leaving England in 1953, he was giving a talk in England about the upcoming expedition and, also, about the failed attempt a year before.

During this speech, Sir Edmund made a fist towards a picture of Mount Everest and said in a loud voice: "Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing!"

We are all aware of the fact that it took Thomas Edison over 1,000 failures to succeed in inventing the light bulb. What is more amazing is an incident that took place later on in his life.

At the age of 67, his ‘fireproof’ factory burned down. As the factory was burning down, Thomas Edison’s son, Charles, was frantically searching for his father.

When Charles found his father, he expected to see an upset man who had lost the work of many years. However, Charles later recalls the following of when he first found his father.

"Here he was, 67 years old, and everything he had worked for was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, 'Charles! Where's your mother?' When I told him I didn't know, he said, 'Find her! Bring her here! She'll never see anything like this as long as she lives.'"

Throughout life, we are faced with many large problems and challenges.

Those who struggle with these look only to the magnitude of the problem.

Those who succeed with these look only to the magnitude of their abilities.

Human beings are capable of literally anything.

What separates does who maximise this capability is simply the focus of their mind and their skill in controlling their ability.

The next time you are faced with a problem, do not look at the size of the problem. Look at the size of your abilities.

One of life's greatest paradoxes lies in the following fact:

In life, we get what we need when we need it least.

As children, we are bound with enthusiasm and energy without really having anything to channel these powerful forces to.

As we grow into adults, we often find these two forces dwindling, even though it is at this time that we need them the most.

Similarly, in our later years, we develop wisdom, without having the years to use this skill.

This is life's greatest mystery. Why do we have a skill or a character trait in abundance when, in reality, we can do the least with it.