NEVER GIVE UP!
This week, your columnist rummaged and found some really thought-provoking gems of such high quality, in our reckoning, that we consider them worth sharing. They may actually be so simplistic that any simpleton could create multiples of them themselves but, in the end, they do have, and convey, some meanings and messages. The theme today: […]
This week, your columnist rummaged and found some really thought-provoking gems of such high quality, in our reckoning, that we consider them worth sharing. They may actually be so simplistic that any simpleton could create multiples of them themselves but, in the end, they do have, and convey, some meanings and messages. The theme today: Never Give Up! Enjoy.
Your Weakness May Be Your Strength:
Sometimes your biggest weakness can become your biggest strength. Take, for example, the story of one 10-year-old boy who decided to study judo despite the fact that he had lost his left arm in a devastating car accident. The boy began lessons with an old Japanese judo master. The boy was doing well, so he couldn’t understand why, after three months of training the master had taught him only one move. “Sensei,” the boy finally said, “Shouldn’t I be learning more moves?” “This is the only move you know, and this is the only move you’ll ever need to know,” the sensei replied.
Not quite understanding, but believing in his teacher, the boy kept training. Several months later, the sensei took the boy to his first tournament. Surprising himself, the boy easily won his first two matches. The third match proved to be more difficult, but after some time, his opponent became impatient and charged; the boy deftly used his one move to win the match. Still amazed by his success, the boy was now in the finals.
This time, his opponent was bigger, stronger, and more experienced. For a while, the boy appeared to be overmatched. Concerned that the boy might get hurt, the referee called a time-out. He was about to stop the match when the sensei intervened. “No,” the sensei insisted, “Let him continue.”
Soon after the match resumed, his opponent made a critical mistake: he dropped his guard. Instantly, the boy used his move to pin him. The boy had won the match and the tournament. He was the champion.
On the way home, the boy and sensei reviewed every move in each and every match. Then the boy summoned the courage to ask what was really on his mind.
“Sensei, how did I win the tournament with only one move?” “You won for two reasons,” the sensei answered. “First, you’ve almost mastered one of the most difficult throws in all of judo. And second, the only known defense for that move is for your opponent to grap your left arm.”
The boy’s biggest weakness had become his biggest strength.
On Dealing With Obstacles:
An old farmer had plowed around a large rock in one of his fields for years. He had broken several plowshares and a cultivator on it and had grown rather morbid about the rock. After breaking another plowshare one day, and remembering all the trouble the rock had caused him through the years, he finally decided to do something about it.
When he put the crowbar under the rock, he was surprised to discover that it was only about six inches thick and that he could break it up easily with a sledgehammer. As he was carting the pieces away he had to smile, remembering all the trouble that the rock had caused him over the years, and how easy it would have been to ged rid of it sooner.
On Courage: A writer, Kathy Gates, asks: “What does courage mean to you? Courage to admit a mistake? Courage to stop someone from hurting you? Courage to stand up for what you believe? Courage to just be yourself? Yes, all those things take courage, but all of those things also have something else in common. Do you think any one of those things can be accomplished without feeling some fear? No. There cannot be courage without fear.
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment or decision that something else is more important than the fear. Courage is what you do IN SPITE of the fear, in spite of the resistance, in spite of what you want right now. But you don’t have to show the kind of courage that it takes to get on the news. You can show courage every day. It takes courage to go against ‘That’s just the way it is’; or ‘What can I do about it?’, or ‘It has always been this way’; or ‘They won’t let me…’
“Courage brings to mind the Bible story of David and Goliath [in the Qur’an: Dawud and Jalut]. In order to succeed, you’ll have to have courage to stand up to your personal Giants too. Courage doesn’t mean that you don’t recognise the difficulty of the task. But it does mean that you are willing to do it anyway, to push yourself out of the comfort zone, to give it a try. Courage is standing up to whatever mental-emotional-physical “Giant” is standing in your way.” Just never give up!
Never Give Up!: A woman once wrote to the Islamic Question and Answer website www.islamqa.com saying: “I have been suffering from pains in my body, which have increased by a spell that spoilt my life. I have aged in years, but yet not married! I feel desperate and depressed. My life is about suffering; empty of success…I am not comfortable in life. How shall I continue this life?”
Among the highly uplifting answers the suffering woman was given was the message: NEVER GIVE UP. And the answers also included this: The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “On the Day of Resurrection, when people who had suffered affliction are given their reward, those who were healthy will wish their skins had been cut to pieces with scissors when they were in the world.” Narrated in Saheeh al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2402.
Martin Luther once said, ‘Everything that is done in the world is done by the hopeful. No matter your age; no matter your circumstances; no matter your financial wealth: without hope, nothing is possible.”
Look again at the life that you are living, and at the calamities that you are suffering, and think positively of Allah, for He will help you fight those Giants and overcome. Never Give Up! Glorified be Allah’s Name.