"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career.I've lost almost 300 games.26 times,I've been trusted to take the game winning shot & missed. I've failed over & over & over again in my life. & that's why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan
Ever been told you couldn't do something because the odds were against you? Perhaps, it was something that was hard to do or never been done before. That mentality of "I can't, because ...." arises.
Looking at facts is the easiest thing one can do. The great Michael Jordan in high school didn't succeed in making it onto his school's basketball team. At the time, MJ was too short to make it to the Varsity basketball team. So what was the fact? He was too short.
But MJ, looked beyond the facts and reasoning, which I believe can be the hardest thing to do. He maintained that mentality of "I can" because he believed that beyond the obvious facts, he could make the team. Most of the time, people forget to look beyond the facts and lose the will to do something or fight for something that they want or believe in. To keep that stamina when things seem out of reach even though you want to give up, I believe is the biggest challenge. If you look throughout history, books, movies and even our everyday lives, there are various examples of people accomplishing the seemingly impossible.
Just recently, I saw the movie "The Adjustment Bureau" and the most important thing I took away was the simple fact that, no matter if all odds seem against you, if you work for something you love dearly then anything is possible. In the movie, the protagonist falls in love with this woman who according to the plan (dictated by a character named Chairman) he was unable to be with. Agents who worked for the Chairman tried to keep the couple apart, but against all odds the protagonist decided to take a chance, risk his future and find the Chairman to change the plan. In the end, the Chairman had no problem changing the 'master plan,' because it was all a test. A test to see if the protagonist would question the rules set upon him (as many take facts and never question them) and to see how far he would go and how much he was willing to risk for something he loved. (It's a really good movie, despite my super uber short synopsis of the movie).
One my favorite quotes comes from Thomas Edison, who said,
"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try one more time."
I think we should live with the mentality of "I can" instead of I can't. The easiest thing for us to do is to give up on something that is deemed impossible or unlikely. But we must look beyond reason! And when hope is frail, look to those who have done the impossible and use it as a reminder that standards of what is said to be impossible is not set in stone, but is merely a threshold of something that is waiting to be defied.
Be that person that defies all odds!! :0)
