The other day I was checking out blogs and came across one about love. There was a post on it that particularly caught my attention. In the post was the fictional story of a child with one arm that had signed up to take a martial arts class in spite of his disability. Throughout the class the boy was only taught one move and, when he questioned this, he was told it was the only move he would need. After practicing the move over and over the boy virtually mastered it. He competed in a tournament and was able to defeat opponent after opponent until he had won the championship. When he asked how he was able to win the tournament, his teacher explained to him that he had virtually mastered the most difficult move and that the only defense was to grab the left arm – the arm the boy was missing.
Another story is that of a child born without ears. The doctor’s opinion of this child was that he would likely be deaf and mute for life. Through witnessing his son enjoy music from a phonograph by clamping his teeth on the case, his father discovered his son could hear. Shortly after this discovery his father figured out that, if he spoke with his lips touching the child’s bone at the base of the skull, he could hear him. The father began to tell his son stories to develop his self confidence and to instill in him the belief that this was an asset instead of a liability and would someday work to his benefit. Upon reaching his last week in college, the young man received a hearing aid that finally allowed him to hear normally. He was so excited that he wrote to the manufacturer telling them about his story. He was invited to visit the company and following the visit decided that he wanted to find a way to share this with all the other people that could benefit from the device. He created a plan and presented it to the company and was given a position to carry out his plan. Little did he know that he was destined to help many people who might otherwise have lived the rest of their lives deaf.
What is the moral of these two stories? I would say it is that, if we focus on our strengths or on finding strength in what would otherwise be considered a weakness, we may actually find that it is not in fact a weakness or liability but actually an advantage that makes us ideally suited for certain tasks or contributions in life. These stories are also examples of what can be accomplished with love, encouragement and support.
Credits:
1) The first story I referred to, “Weakness or Strength?”, was found on Symphony of Love’s Blog: http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/symphony-of-loves-blog . It was posted on Sept. 24, 2009.
2) The second story I referred to appears in the book – Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill.
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