Do not underestimate what you have

George Chingarande | Monday August 18, 2014 14:52

When the two-year-old woke up after the operation, he cried out to his mother, “I cannot see.  Mom I cannot see anymore!” Undaunted, his mother reassured him, “Ben, you can still see”.  She took his hands and pressed them against his fact, and said to him, “You have hands, you see with them”.  She also put her hands against her nose and told him, “You have your nose you can still see with your nose”.  And finally, she touched his ears and said to him, “If you can hear me with your ears, then you can still see me”.  However, the most important words that she told her son that day were, “You do not have your eyes anymore, but you still have your hands, your nose, your ears and your tongue.  You still have a lot”.  The message to you, dear reader, is that you may not have everything, but you have a lot.

In the coming years, his mother dissuaded him from wallowing in self pity.  One day, when he was five-years-old, Ben surprised his mother by telling her the size of the building they were driving past.  Ben had discovered what scientists call echolocation, the ability to sense objects in one’s surrounding by detecting echoes that come from them.  Ben learnt how to make clicking sounds with his tongue, he would then listen to the echoes form these sounds.  From the echoes, he could tell the location and size and even shape of objects in his surroundings.  Using this technique Ben went on to master contact sports such as basketball, rollerblading, football and skateboarding.  He would even compete in athletics event.  However, when he died from complications of cancer, he left us more than just the lesson that humans can actually see without eyes.  We will examine the lessons.

Focus Not On Your Limitations, But on Your Abilities:

The fact that Ben no longer had eyes was a fact and a limitation that no one could dispute.  Like Ben, all of us also have some limitations.

Some people are physically handicapped, yet some are physically sound but financially handicapped.  Some people are wealthy, and yet they are intellectually vulnerable.  The point I wish to underline here is that all people have their limitations.  In order to make progress at an individual, organisational or even national level we all need to master the art of focusing on our abilities and not on our limitations.  The greatest mistake that Ben could have made his life was to focus on his limitations.  If he had focused on his blindness, he would never have discovered echolocation.

The reason there is so little progress in most people’s lives and in most organisations is that the focus is on the wrong things.  This is also true about human relations.  There can never be a sound relationship between a leader and his subordinate if the boss puts too much focus on the subordinate’s limitations.  If Ben’s mother, who was the authority figure in his life, had focused on his blindness or allowed him to focus on his blindness, Ben would have been just another ill-fated victim of blindness.  A relationship, whether amorous or professional, can never flourish if the people involved focus on their and one another’s limitations.

Focus not on what you do not have, but on what you can do with what you have:

Ben did not have eyes, but he had a tongue.  The key to Ben’s success was not his lack of eyesight.  Ben succeeded because he learnt how to do something with what he already had.  Ben did not wait for God to create new eyes for him, but he occupied himself with learning to make do with what he already had.

The fact that you do not have something that you believe is a natural advantage does not mean that you are disadvantaged.  The fact that you do not have everything focusing on what we cannot do, instead of concentrating on what we can do with what we already have.  We make the mistake of complaining about what we do not have, instead of trying to figure out what we can creatively do with what we already have.  The key to the future of your dreams is some asset, gift, talent, ability or opportunity that is already in your possession as you read this piece.

Focus not on the problem, but on the solution:

Chemist Frederick Kekule is credited with one of the most amazing discoveries of all time.  For years, scientists had failed to solve the atomic structure of the element benzene.  Kekule observed himself with finding the solution to this conundrum.  After many years of constant study and experimentation, one evening a tired Kekule dozed off.  As he was beginning to doze off, he began to dream.

In the dream, he saw atoms whirling and dancing before his eyes.  Then the atoms began to reassemble themselves in long lines in a snakelike fashion.  The snake began to dance, and rearrange itself as if it was about to devour its own tail, forming ring-like structure.  Startled, Kekule awoke and immediately realised that his conundrum had been solved.  Benzene had a ringlike structure.  Future experiments confirmed this. Many things can be said about the dream,  but no one can dispute that if Kekule had not obsessed himself with finding the structure of Benzene, he probably would never have had the dream.  Solutions come to those that seek them.

There is no limit to human potential:

If a blind toddler can teach himself to see without eyes, what can you achieve with all the advantages that you have?  The greatest mystery of all is that no one will ever be able to discover the end to human potential.  There is no problem that will continue to defy solution if you dedicate yourself to finding a solution.  Often the impossible is the untried.  By dedicating himself to his mission, man often pleasantly surprises himself by discovering not only what he can do, but his true self.