Earlier today, I was running one of my favorite mountain trails when up ahead I spotted two men approaching. As we drew closer, I noticed that one of the men looked like a Mr. Universe, while the other was blind. Carrying his cane, though not using it, I was impressed with how well the blind man was navigating his way down the steep incline littered with stray rocks, pebbles, ruts and raised roots. The man didn’t falter or slow his pace. Instead, he relied heavily on his other senses to carry him across the terrain without incident.
Later in the day, I got held up in traffic. Inching along, and finally coming to the source of the delay, I spotted what had been a bad accident—two cars involved. Both had spun out of control. And the front end of one was wrapped around a street pole. Off to the side, I noticed the passengers, and gave thanks that they were all okay. Well…that is…except for one young man. As I looked on, I noticed his arm was already in a sling and his leg messed up, from some other incident. Hobbling away from the car he had exited, he looked a bit dazed but went to help others. Watching him, I couldn’t help but think that his day just got a whole lot worse. Already recovering from some other set of injuries, he now had to deal with just having been in a terrible car accident.
In the early evening, while waiting for my car to get an oil change, I watched the news and was delighted to hear of the good news in Egypt. It still baffles my mind that in just over two weeks the revolutionaries were able to pull off what no others had since the 1950’s. Still more intriguing was when I watched a man interviewed who had Facebook written across his forehead. When asked the significance, he told how everyone had organized ahead of time on Facebook to know where and when to show up to begin the revolution that ultimately freed their country. I was stunned.
What do these three tales have in common, and why did I opt to share them? Each demonstrated something I am most fond of—human nature to go deep within, locate one’s limits and then push beyond them.
In the case of the blind man, he could have stayed off the challenging mountain trail, or had his friend guide him down by holding his arm or staying right beside him. But he didn’t. Instead, he opted to push himself to accomplish what he wanted.
The already-injured young man in the car accident could have been ranting and raving and adopting a woe-why-me attitude, but he didn’t. Instead, he overlooked his own discomfort and saw to the needs of others.
And the revolutionaries could have continued living under the corrupt government their ancestors had, but they were willing to strive for something more. To not only push the limits, but also to organize a state-of-the-art revolution set up with pinpoint accuracy and that had minimalistic collateral damage.
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