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March 08, 2005
Like a blossoming flower
Like a blossoming flower in winter, I have a blogging buddy who inspires me every day. He has the guts to bare his soul to his readers without worrying about what people say. From drawing a beautiful quilt on his bed to sharing his ongoing battle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Michael Nobbs has taught me the value of life.
Michael’s struggle has made him treasures every breath he takes. Unlike him, there so are people who don’t value their lives at all. They cannot see that only THEY can decide whether their existence is a privilege and a joy or whether it’s sad and miserable. When they say, “What is the point? Is it worth the struggle?” The reality they create makes their life worth little.
It’s difficult to make these people understand happiness if they won’t jump for joy. (Even though Michael is sometimes totally exhausted, his writing and pictures still show his soul yelling with infectious enthusiasm.)
You and I may be moved by a passionate piece of music. We may be touched by a beautiful painting. We may thrill to the warmth of our lover’s breath. All of these pleasures are available to us, but it’s up to us to reach for them and include them in our lives.
Only we can decide, whether a swim in a mountain stream, the taste of a perfect peach dripping with sweet juice, a long conversation over a bottle of wine or a relaxing bubble bath, will add value to our existence.
Life is not awful. There are people who chose to make it so. As Andrew Matthews says, “Many people die at twenty-five and don’t get buried until they are seventy.”
Michael has reached up for the safety rope that hangs above us all and is pulling himself out of the quicksand. So is a young girl I know named Candice.
Candice is twelve years old and until she was diagnosed with cancer, loved playing softball. In fact, she was so good that she was the only girl on the boy's team. But childhood cancer left her with one leg, so she played on the girl's team.
Then radiation therapy zapped her energy and running became even more difficult, so she became a catcher.
Chemotherapy drained her even more and so she became a scorer.
Scoring became difficult and Candice got depressed. She loved the game so much yet there was no way for her to be involved.
"I'm sick of being depressed," she told me one day. "This hospital is driving me nuts."
So she did something about it. She found something to be passionate about and that passion became the rope she used to pull herself up.
Over the next month Candice told everyone she knew that she was collecting baseball trading cards and if they didn't mind, instead of bringing her candy, could they please bring her cards.
Candy got onto the Internet and spread the word. Soon her collection grew. People from all over sent her cards.
Professional sports people sent her signed cards, game companies sent her collector cards and Candice continues to score.
She is about to win the biggest softball game in history, the Guinness World record for collecting the most baseball cards.
Every one of us has an incredible amount of potential stored within us. The problem is that we cannot access this potential until we value our lives and put ourselves in the right frame of mind to succeed.
Success often starts as a longing for something that seems out of reach. At five years old, little Tiger Woods could hardly hit the ball ten feet. He was so close to the ground he couldn't even see the putting green, but he was determined. The clubs were bigger than he was, so his dad cut them down with a saw. At twenty-four, Tiger won the 100th US Open Golf Tournament with an eight stroke lead.
We all have incredible potential! Many of us have the exact same dreams that people like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates and many other successful people have, but we have not done anything about it.
We all enjoy hearing about people like Arnold Schwarzenegger who was told by his family to please get a respectable job or James Michener who was told that his book Tales of the South Pacific was really not that good. (Mitchener later won a Pulitzer Prize for this book.) Let's not forget Alexander Graham Bell who was told by the President of the United States that he didn't see people ever using a device like the telephone.
The dangling rope might represent success in losing weight, getting fit, giving up smoking, writing a book, making a marriage work, overcoming grief, or fighting depression.
To succeed we've got to reach for that inner strength and slowly, inch by inch, pull ourselves up to where we want to be.
So many of us fail to realize how close we are to attaining our dreams because we don't grab the rope and climb for our lives.
Thank you Michael for inspiring so many people and showing us the ropes.
(You can read Michael’s blog at michaelnobbs.com)
Posted by trevor at March 8, 2005 08:18 AM