Look For Examples---All You Need Is One

Do you ever find yourself making up excuses as to why you’re not where you want to be in life?  I have done this more times that I can count.  “I don’t have the opportunity to develop my spirituality—I’m too busy with my baby.” Or, “My mind is so consumed with taking care of the house that I can’t plan nutritious meals.”  I could go on, but I think you get the point.  After years of excuse-making, I decided I would take the energy I spent coming up with the excuses and apply it to finding moms who were actually living my dreams.  Once I found those moms, I interviewed them to figure out how they did it.  They were all happy to teach me, and I feel so blessed to know these great women. 

I found a mother of three preschoolers who spent an hour nurturing her spirit every day, a mother who genuinely had fun with her children, a mother who didn’t stress over dust on her picture frames, a mother who decorated her home beautifully on a tiny budget, a mother who made her home into a great learning environment for her children, a mother who knew how to breathe during the day, a mother who kept her mind alert in spite of the mayhem around her, a mother who didn’t forget that she, too, deserves some TLC, and a mother who wouldn’t let anything get her down (and she had a lot of reasons to feel down).    

I know I will never be perfect at everything, but by finding just one mother who achieves the impossible, we redefine impossible.  In the book Man’s Search for Meaning, a psychiatrist named Victor Frankl tells about his experience as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps.  I’m going to quote heavily from pages 86-89 because the truths he teaches are SO well-put.

He remembers “the men who walked through the huts, comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread….Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food, and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision…any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually.” 

He goes on to explain “It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”  And finally, here is the part that relates to “finding the one” who can redefine impossible: “Do not think that these considerations are unworldly and too far removed from real life.  It is true that only a few people are capable of reaching such high moral standards.  Of the prisoners only a few kept their full inner liberty and obtained those values which their suffering afforded, but even one such example is sufficient proof that man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.”

Beautifully said, don’t you think?  If one person has done it, it can be done.  And in many cases, we can do it, too.

If You Can’t Find One, But You Believe in the “Impossible,” BECOME That One

Sometimes, no matter how hard we look, we can’t find anyone in our circles who embodies a characteristic we are trying to attain.  That’s when we ask ourselves, “Is this really impossible?”  If the answer is no, or if we think there might be a chance it can be done, then perhaps we need to be the ones to step up to the plate and make it a reality.  If not us, who?  If not now, when?  It’s a sobering thought.