The Battle

There are those who act as though the purpose of life were to get all the money, position and convenience you possibly can. For them, life is a battle to be fought with your hands, reaching endlessly for what you need and want. It is a battle of things, appearances, resumes, skills and advantages that only ends when you die and even then, you must pass those values on to your children lest they squander that in which you have invested so much time and effort. By this standard, a man's success is measured by his salary, investments, possessions and the size of his home, all of which is outside of himself. But what if, when measuring success or failure, we measured the inside of a man instead of merely his possessions? How could we do such a thing even if we tried?

When I was very young, I used to sing. I had an older sister who also sang. Once, while listening to me singing, my sister leaned over and with something less than appreciation let me know that my singing was 'flat'. The way she said it, and what I thought she meant by it, was enough to cause me, from that time onward, to always try to tighten my voice, sing softer, to avoid other people when I sang and in general to feel that my voice was unacceptable to other people. Forty years later, as I stood on the stage in front of 1300 people, those feelings came back to me and I wondered if all those people were going to think that I was singing flat!

Victor Frankel, the famous writer and thinker who survived a prison camp experience, said that though his captors could take everything else from them, including their lives, there was one thing they could not take away, and that was their capacity to choose how they would react to their situation. He was able to choose love in the face of hatred, service in the face of deprivation and purpose in the face of confinement.

Principles held within the mind and heart of a man are more powerful than money or advantages. If a man believes that he is a failure because he has little money, no position and few possessions then he is bound by that belief. Even as I was bound by my belief that whenever I sang, it would be flat and people would not want to listen, so we can be bound by the things that we believe about ourselves. In other words, the real battle of life is within the mind of a man.

I have read of a blind man who, deciding to climb Mt. Everest, set his mind to the task and finally completed it, making him the first blind man ever to do so. But he only succeeded after he had determined that he was capable of such a thing. If he had decided that because he was blind, he should not even think of doing such dangerous things, then it would have been true. . How many times do we stop ourselves from whatever it is we would like to do, simply because we believe it is not possible. I have heard hundreds of people say to me that they would love to succeed if only they had the money for this or that advantage; and so they have given up all hope of success, unless they win the lottery or someone gives them a million dollars. On the other hand, there are those with wealth and advantages in abundance who accomplish little and find neither success nor happiness.

Success comes not to the one with the most money, but to the one who has defeated the false ideas of his own mind that keep him from accomplishing whatever he desires. People through the ages, have proven time and again, that humans are capable of amazing things. However, there are those who falsely believe that the only thing standing between them and success is money and practice. But that is not quite true, in my opinion. The only thing standing between anyone and their own success is that little gray battlefield on your shoulders that must be won in order for you to believe that you are capable of success or happiness or anything else.

I once watched as a little handicapped girl played a beautiful piano piece. Her mother had been told that the girl would be a vegetable all her life. She did not believe it. She had won the battle that we all must fight if we would find either happiness or success. And that's worth fighting for.