I hope that this poem by Helen Steiner Rice will inspire you and I whom are all equaled in the Universe and whom are always loved. We will sometimes face challenges which we may think to be beyond us. However, bear in mind always that we will not be given a challenge which we cannot handle; we will always overcome these challenges to become a better person. And while we are caught in the undercurrent and seemed to be swept away, let us all continue to hold strongly the faith that ‘This too shall pass …’ As the sun set to signify the end of the day and that a new day is certain.
This Too Shall Pass by Helen Steiner Rice
If I can endure for this minute
Whatever is happening to me,
No matter how heavy my heart is
Or how dark the moment may be –
If I can remain calm and quiet
With all the world crashing about me,
Secure in the knowledge God loves me
When everyone else seems to doubt me –
If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too –
Then nothing in life can defeat me
For as long as this knowledge remains
I can suffer whatever is happening
For I know God will break all of the chains
That are binding me tight in the darkness
And trying to fill me with fear –
For this is no night without dawning
And I know that my morning is near.
“No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.” – Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
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How do you usually react whenever someone tells you that it is impossible to achieve something? It has been a while since someone has said that to me with absolute certainty; it was as if his fate had been cast in stone and nothing could be done to change it. Fortunately, I was not prepared to give up on him yet. I asked him, “How hard are you willing to work? Are you willing to go through the 10,000 hours?”
I first chanced upon this 10,000-hour rule from Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Outliers’ where a comparison was made of the hours of practice for violinists between elite performers, merely good students and future music teachers. It was found,
“… by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice where else by contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.“
Similar pattern was observed between amateur pianists and professional pianists. Then came the idea that could there be a critical minimum level of practice for excellence? From the book, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours. ” The emerging picture from studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world class expert – in anything,” writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin.
It was stated in the book that there is not a case found yet which true world class expertise was accomplished in less time. The question now is, “Are we willing to go through the 10,000-hour rule to become an expert in what we want to do?” Maybe we could argue that we are not aiming to become an expert in a particular field, like to be a professional golfer, to be a renown mathematician, to be a world class pianist etc, so we need not go through the 10,000-hour rule. Indeed, one doesn’t have to go through that many hours of practice if one just takes playing the piano as a hobby.
However, if we do want to be good in golf, then we must practice more. As the saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” I do not agree with that actually but I do believe that practice makes better; with practice, we will surely get better with what we are doing. If I want to be better in golf and to enjoy the game more, then I just have to play more often and practice more. The next time before we say with absolute certainty that it is impossible for me to be good in golf or in anything we want to be, we must first ask ourselves, if we are willing to go through at least part of the 10,000 hours to be better.
Perhaps we could also argue, “Professional golfer, world class musician etc, they were all born with special talent and ability to be good in what they are doing!” Quoting something from Albert Einstein, “Genius is 1% talent and 99% percent hard work.” Whether we like it or not, that is the cold hard fact; even if we were born with a special talent, but if we do not develop it with practice and hard work, then we would amount to nothing.
The next time before we say ‘impossible,’ again, let us look deeply and be honest with ourselves, “Is it really impossible?”
Just saw a video of a talent competition from Korea and there is this man who had lived in the street alone for about 10 years, from a young age, selling gums and energy drinks for a living. And yet he moved on bravely; just doing what he likes to do – sing. He not only sings, he touches the hearts of the audiences and the judges. A lot of times, it takes someone like him to remind us of how fortunate we have been and how we may have taken a lot of things for granted. Quoting something from John Gokongwei, Jr., “The important thing to know is that life will always deal us a few bad cards. But we have to play those cards the best we can. And we can play to win!” No matter how hard life may be for you right now. Continue to move forward courageously with faith that one day all will get better; it will surely get better!
It is the same thing; no matter what our situation is today, we can always choose to do the best with the situation and we can play it to win.
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“No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich.” – Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
