EFFORT BRINGS SATISFACTION
There are a lot of ‘naysayers’ out there. Often it is your best friend who warns you, “Don’t even try that.” But remember, ‘THEY’ don’t have your vision. ‘THEY’ don’t share your passion. And so what if the final outcome to your dream isn’t exactly what you imagined? There is great satisfaction in expending the effort. You won’t really know, if you never try.
A little black boy was attending a public school in the South in the 1950s. He didn’t seem to be learning; and so some teacher or administrator had him moved to a special education class and classified him as being retarded. The child’s mother knew that there was a problem but she also knew that her son was not retarded. With limited financial resources, it took her a while to be able to get things organized to move to a different State, where the boy was reassessed. There she found fresh eyes to evaluate her ‘retarded’ son. That young man was not retarded at all; he went on to complete high school and graduated college. For years now, he has been a nationally renown motivational speaker.
A little white girl shrunk into her world of blackness and silence. She was both blind and deaf. Luckily for her, her parents were able to fight her battles and find a miraculous teacher who could bridge the gaps and unleash the girl’s potential. We all know about the success of Helen Keller and her teacher, Ann Sullivan.
I become annoyed when people don’t say the truth. Almost every week some person stumbles upon one of my scrabble clubs at BORDERS or ARBYS or The Neighborhood Cup. They’ll approach and say something like, “I love to play scrabble.” But then they follow that up with, “I’m not good. I can’t spell.” No matter how gracious and welcoming I am to them, they’ve already decided that they can’t do this. Soon after, they drift away.
I would have rather that they had said, “Just looking. I don’t want to spend my energy learning words, I’d rather spend my time etching glass.”
And that’s okay. But the truth is . . . we can all do just about anything. And the good feeling and fun we get from doing anything is in direct relation to our personal effort.
So, get up and go do ‘that thing’ right now.