Reaching the port of heaven
George Chingarande | Monday October 6, 2014 06:59
While scaling Mt Cook in New Zealand, he was trapped in a snow cave for fourteen days. Upon being rescued, he was barely alive and consequently lost both his legs to frost bite. They had to be amputated from the knees downwards, so he is what they call a double amputee.
Most people would have been very grateful just to survive the ordeal, complain about life’s cruel and unfair hand, quit their ambitions, and make a career out of begging for alms. After all, how could a double amputee climb a flight of stairs, let alone scale Mt Everest? This,however, was not the case with Michael. From the ashes of despair, he decided to resurrect his dream and live it to the fullest. He was not content with nursing his excuses and pitying himself. In 2007 Mike, undaunted by his disadvantages, defied the odds and became the first double amputee to climb to the top of Mt Everest. An amazing feat, isn’t it? That is a small part of the story: On his ascent, he actually broke one of his artificial limbs. How cruel can fate be? Undaunted by this set back, fired by fierce determination and spurred by an indomitable never-say-die commitment to his ambition, he soldiered on until he stood triumphantly at the top of Mt Everest. He made it in spite of the odds.
Mario Capechi won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work in genetics. He is renowned and acknowledged for his achievements and rightly so, but few people know much about his formative years. For much of his childhood Mario was what is today called a street kid. During the Second World War, after his mother was arrested, Mario found himself out on the streets fending for himself. He was about five years old at the time. That is not the most auspicious start one can look for in life. In his own words Mario said, “in my own case, what I saw was that, despite the complete absence of an early nurturing environment, the intrinsic drive to make a difference in our world is not easily quenched and that given an opportunity, early handicaps can be overcome and dreams achieved.”
Domosthenes is widely regarded as the most accomplished ancient Greek orator. He also had a very inauspicious beginning to his career. During his first speeches he was jeered at and ridiculed. He was born with a stammer and also had difficulties with pronouncing some words. This was an impediment in the unforgiving world of ancient Greek oration. What was Domostheness response to all this? Plutarch, the Greek historian and biographer, records that Demosthenes built an underground study from where he exercised his voice. He shaved half of the hair on his head so that he couldn’t go out in public and he overcame the stutter by speaking with pebbles in his mouth and by reciting verses while running or out of breath. He also practiced speaking before a large mirror.
Time and space constrain us so we will not cite many more examples. However, based on these few examples I would like to hasten to advance a few very important theses. First, there can never be a testimony without a test, and the sterner the test the more compelling the testimony. The purpose of the tests of life is to separate the winners from the losers, and the pretenders from the serious contenders. The true measure of achievement and greatness is not necessarily what one has achieved. Greatness is reflected by the size of the odds one overcomes on his way to the feat. The word testimony is spelt with a prefix ‘test’, hence all testimonies are preceded by tests. This is true of all great achievements. They are preceded by great sacrifices and many a time involves surmounting some huge odds.
All the people we cited above had inauspicious beginnings, yet achieved greatness in their lives. What does this teach us? Your less than magnificent beginning does not have to spell the end to your pursuit. There is always another opportunity to start again more intelligently. Disappointments and set backs are frequent visitors on life’s journey. However, there is always life beyond the disappointment.
Disappointment cannot defeat you without your cooperation. Setbacks cannot keep you down for long without your active participation. What matters on the day and at the moment of disappointment is not where you are, but the direction in which you are heading. You must always be headed somewhere. As Oliver Wendell put it, “to reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it-but we must sail and not drift or lie at anchor.” We must also disabuse ourselves of the idea that one day the sea will rest and bring favourable conditions to us. Instead we must learn to sail in the high winds of life.
We do not know which port of heaven you are reaching out to, but we do know that it is futile to wish the challenges were lesser. As Brooks put it, “do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle.”
No man can tell what the future brings forth, but small opportunities and set backs are often the beginnings of great enterprises. However, we must always remember that small questions bring small answers, small actions breed small achievements. There is much benefit to be reaped in asking the big questions and taking the big actions. Your big challenge in this life is to reach your own port of heaven and to do so with probity and dignity.