Destined or Determined?

Image courtesy of Scott Liddell

A sky-diving instructor was asked, “How many successful jumps must a student make before he or she can become certified?”

He answered, “All of them!”

Sky diving, however, is the exception. Is your life built on a series of successes? Do you usually attempt something new and immediately succeed, then succeed again and again? Or more likely, do you find that it is the other way around?

Our successes are often built on smaller failures. We fell off the bike a few times before we learned to ride. And we produced a few culinary failures before we baked a successful layered cake or prepared a satisfactory omelet.

Tom Hopkins observes, “The number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.” And Winston Churchill stated, “Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” They both agree that discouragement, rather than failure, is the enemy of success. Those who can remain hopeful and focused, though they fail, are those who will eventually succeed.

In all, Emily Dickinson is said to have written nearly eighteen hundred poems. Though fewer than a dozen were published in her lifetime and the first volume of her poetry was not published until four years after her death, Dickinson’s success is attributed to the fact that she did not allow discouragement to keep her from her poetry.

As she wrote so beautifully:

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.”

Hope … never stops. Where would we be today had Emily Dickinson lost her enthusiasm for writing? Though largely unrecognized, she kept her desire alive and we now remember her as one of the great poets of all time.

It’s good to remember that success may be just beyond the next failure, and you’ll get there, not because you’re destined to, but because you’re determined to.

-- Steve Goodier

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When You're in the Cement Mixer

Image courtesy of Nathan Bauer

Did you ever have a day like this? A man, cleaning one of those big cement trucks, got caught in the mixer. He climbed into the back of the truck with a hose to flush out remaining cement when his hose caught on a lever and pulled it to the “on” position. Suddenly, he found himself going round and round in the mixer with no way to escape. Slipping, sliding and banging around inside, all he could do was shout for help.

Fortunately, another worker came over and shut it off. In moments a bruised man, covered with wet concrete, emerged from the mixer. It reminds me of some days I’ve had. You know what I mean.

If you ever feel as if you are being knocked about by life, think about the amazing bird called the Water Ouzel. I can’t imagine this water bird knows what it is to have a bad day. The little creature is often found living next to violent waterfalls and fast-rushing rivers. And however threatening the weather, however cold the water, in snow and rain and even blazing summer sun, the tough and cheerful Water Ouzel can be heard chirping and singing. What’s more, while the voices of most songbirds, however melodious in warm weather, fall silent over long winter months, the hearty Water Ouzel sings on through all seasons and every kind of storm. I have to wonder: does this little creature know something I don’t?

It’s as if the bird knows that every violent storm will eventually give way to sunshine; every dark night will finally fade into dawn. And isn’t it true? Even our bleakest and stormiest times do not last forever. Like the poor man buffeted about in the cement mixer, there is almost always an end to the turmoil.

As the incredible humanitarian novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe said, “When you get in a tight place and everything goes against you, until it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time when the tide will turn.” I have had that experience more times than I can remember.

Maybe this is one of those days you feel as if you are in the cement mixer. If so, do you need to hold on a little longer?

-- Steve Goodier

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Not Yet Quitting Time

Image by Sherman Yang

Newspapers once reported about a young Taiwanese man who wrote 700 love letters to his girlfriend over two years. That’s a letter almost every day. And I’m not talking about e-mail. Seven hundred hand-written letters that included folding, licking, stamping, addressing and sending. Seven hundred letters that proclaimed his feelings toward her. Many that even tried to persuade her to accept his marriage proposal.

Two years of correspondence finally got results. She announced her engagement...to the postal worker who delivered all those letters. Of course, it makes sense. She saw HIM every day. Maybe it was lucky for the mail carrier that her boyfriend didn’t give up too soon.

There may be a time to give up, and her boyfriend might have missed some good opportunities to step out of his apparently one-sided relationship. Sometimes it just makes sense to quit trying and move on to something else. Anyone who has been in a destructive relationship or a high-stress job that has taken a personal toll knows what I am talking about.

But there are also times when we need to persist – to keep trying. My experience tells me that quitting too soon is the greater problem. And the reason is simple: it’s usually easier to give something up than to stay with it.

My kids often wanted to give up music lessons. I encouraged them not to quit too early. “Stay with the lessons,” I told them. They did, and were later glad of it. I have spoken with many adults who said to me, “I used to take music lessons when I was a child. I regret the fact that I quit too soon. I wish I knew how to play the piano today.” I have never talked with an adult who said, “I took music lessons when I was a child. I regret the fact that I didn’t quit sooner.”

Of course, it’s not about music lessons...it’s about knowing, when things are rough, whether to keep going or to throw it in. How many books were never written because someone quit too soon? How many relationships died prematurely and how many dreams never bore fruit because someone gave them up?

There are good times to leave a job, to move on to a new relationship or to quit pounding on the same old nail that just won’t budge. But too often, I’ve given in to the temptation to quit too early. I didn’t stick around long enough to see what might happen if I persevered just a bit longer.

Dr. Albert Einstein once commented, “I think and think for months and years.” Can you imagine staying with a problem that long? “Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false,” he continued. “The hundredth time I am right.”

I don’t think that Albert Einstein had the problem of quitting too early. “It's not that I'm so smart,” he famously said, “it's just that I stay with problems longer.” He understood the value of not giving up too soon – and that alone shows how smart he really was.

I’ll never begin to understand the physics of the universe like Dr. Einstein, but it doesn’t take a genius to know when it’s not yet time to quit. Success is often just the result of staying with problems a little longer. And even I can do that.

-- Steve Goodier


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No Hopeless Situations

There is a wonderful urban legend circulating about a man who is trying to land a job as an assistant professor in a university. His application was rejected and he writes the following response:

 Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412 A Clarkson Hall, Whitson University
College Hill, MA  34109

Dear Professor Millington,

   Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department.

   This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

   Despite Whitson's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.

   Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,

Chris L. Jensen

If it is true that you can tell how big someone is by what it takes to discourage that person, then this is a man who must be massive. I might say the same thing about a boy who, in real life, was not so big. But he was difficult to discourage and so he showed himself to be a giant on the inside.

Some 40 years ago, when he was only 11 years old, Morgan Rowe lost his left arm and much of the use of his right arm. It happened when he fell off a tractor at his father's fence company in Valdosta, Georgia, and was dragged beneath the machine. Morgan's left arm was destroyed and his right, mangled.

Young Morgan was released from the hospital after three-and-a-half months. The first thing he set out to do was to help pay the bills -- $30,000 worth. That was a lot of money back then as it is now. For a boy of 11 to accomplish such a task, the situation seemed hopeless.

For five years Morgan scoured roadsides picking up cans and bottles. He collected thousands of cans and collected and sold newspapers. He never gave up hope. First, he paid off the $455 ambulance bill. Then he put $2,500 down on the hospital bill.

He was still a long way off though his parents raised another $9,000 toward the debt.

People began to hear about the injured boy and eventually some 2,000 donations poured in, totaling $25,000. The bill was paid in full! Morgan set aside the additional money for future education.

What then? Though the bill was paid up, Morgan kept his projects going to collect money for the hospital so he could help others.

Someone forgot to tell the boy he was too injured for that kind of work. Someone forgot to tell him that the situation was hopeless. Somehow young Morgan didn't realize that an 11-year-old boy could never pay off a hospital bill so large.

Church reformer Martin Luther once said, “Everything that is done in the world is done by the hopeful.” And entertainer Dinah Shore observed, “There are no hopeless situations – only people who are hopeless about them.” Morgan Rowe should know.

I will not always be young and strong. My life circumstances can change in an instant. My health may leave me and I may lose people who are important in my life. But there are no hopeless situations. So I won’t easily turn loose of my hopeful outlook, even when things seem bleak. Without hope, I’m lost. But with it, I suspect that any situation can be creatively redeemed.

-- Steve Goodier

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Image: flickr.com/C. Ryan

Keep on Swinging

They say that opportunity only knocks once. But temptation seems to pound on my door forever. Even opening up and letting it in doesn’t seem to make it go away. More temptations come along and the beating goes on.

Those temptations that cause me the most problems are those that pull me away from being my best self. So I can relate to the Swiss woman who was served dinner on a domestic American flight. She opened up her dessert – a delicious looking piece of chocolate cake – and immediately sprinkled a generous layer of salt and pepper over it. A shocked flight attendant exclaimed, “Oh! It’s not necessary to do that!”

“But it is,” the woman replied, smiling. “It keeps me from eating it.”

She found a way to drive temptation away from her doorstep, at least for a while.

The most persistent temptations in my life are distractions that keep me from doing what is in my best interest.

I forgo some much-needed exercise because I “just don’t feel like it” today. Have you ever felt like that?

You may want to quit that reading group, that difficult class or those music lessons. It’s easy to become distracted and get discouraged.

Or maybe we say we just “can’t find the time” to spend with those closest to us, such as family. We may want to do these things; it’s just that sometimes we need a nudge.

Something baseball great Hank Aaron once said can help out here. “My motto was to keep swinging,” he said. “Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was to keep swinging.”

Sometimes we just need to keep swinging. And if we tell ourselves that all we need to do today is to take one more swing, that may be enough. We can always take one more swing. And who knows…today we might hit a home run.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: Flickr.com/Linh Nguyen

The Magical Effect

American President John Quincy Adams once said, “Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.” Have you ever witnessed the magical effect of patience and perseverance?

One North Carolina church wanted to purchase some property. The church regularly suffered from high tide flooding. But when the church was originally built, they couldn't afford better property.

As the story is told, they finally decided to relocate to higher ground. An ideal lot was empty - actually the highest ground in town. It belonged to a man named Sam Sadler. Officials from the church went to see Mr. Sadler about selling the property. He politely told them it wasn't for sale; that he had other plans for the land. They persisted, but still he refused.

The congregants were disappointed. Mr. Sadler's land seemed the perfect location. Eventually, they decided on another piece of property and began building.

But a strange thing happened on September 16, 1876, the eve of the dedication of the new church. One of the worst coastal floods in memory struck the town. As water rose, so did the church building. It left its temporary home and floated down main street, turned a corner and eventually settled on the highest spot in town - the empty lot owned by Sam Sadler.

Mr. Sadler gave in. He allowed the building to stay and, because of the remarkable turn of events, they chose a new name: Providence. Today, if you were to ask how Providence United Methodist Church of Swanquarter, North Carolina came to acquire its land, someone may relate to you what Sam Sadler said about the transaction: “I guess if the good Lord couldn't move me to give the land to the church, he would move the church to the land.”

Even John Quincy Adams might have been amazed at the “magical effect” before which the church’s obstacles disappeared.

I believe it was basketball great Michael Jordan who said, “If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work your way around it.”

It’s about patience and perseverance. (And it can’t hurt to have a little faith.)

-- Steve Goodier


Image: flickr.com/Jimmy Emerson

Finding Your Note

A short story by William Saroyan is titled "The Man Whose Wife's Hair Was Too Long But Whose Understanding of Music Was Too Short." If you think the title strange, listen to this:

In the story, a husband plays the cello and never changes notes. He just continues to repeat the same note without variation.

His wife is driven to distraction and finally protests: "Why do you play the same note over and over and over again? Other cellists play different notes."

"Other cellists play different notes," her husband replies, "because they are trying to find the right one. I've found mine."

Ahhh, the beauty of finding your note! I think I could like him. Finding your note is something like finding your purpose in life or landing where you need to be.

Philosopher James Allen advised, "Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it." He could have said, “Find your note and stay with it.”

I believe that is an important part of being happy. Like Helen Keller says, true happiness is attained “through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”

In music, staking your claim on one note will drive everyone around you nuts. But finding the right note in life, and giving yourself to it, can be a source of unending joy.

-- Steve Goodier


image: flickr.com/Boqiang Liao 

Who Owns the Backyard?

Vicki Huffman, in Plus Living (Harold Shaw Publishers, 1989), tells about a man who loved to hunt and bought two pedigreed setters that he trained to be fine bird dogs. He kept them in a large, fenced pen in his backyard.

One morning he observed a little bulldog trotting down the alley behind his home. It saw the two dogs and squeezed under the fence. The man thought he should perhaps lock up the setters so they wouldn't hurt the little dog, but changed his mind. Maybe they would "teach that bulldog a lesson," he reasoned.

As he predicted, fur began to fly, and all of it was bulldog fur. The feisty intruder soon had enough and squeezed back under the fence to get away.

To the man's surprise, the visitor returned again the next morning. He crawled under the fence and once again took on the tag-team of setters. And like the day before, he soon quit and squeezed out of the pen.

The incident was repeated the following day, with the same results.

The man left early the next morning on a business trip and returned after several weeks. He asked his wife what finally became of the bulldog.

"You won't believe it," she replied. "At the same time every day that little dog came to the backyard and fought with our setters. He never missed a day! It has come to the point now that when our setters simply hear him snorting down the alley, they start whining and run down into the basement. Then the little bulldog struts around our backyard as if he owns it."

That bulldog inspires me when it comes to managing problems. Not that think I have to fight and impose my will on whatever is in my way. But I appreciate that little dog's perseverance. He persisted with his problem until it disappeared.

Dale Carnegie made this observation: "Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." In the end, it's the persistent bulldog that will own the backyard.

-- Steve Goodier

Image: flickr.com/Julian King