Was it a rewriting of life that made Napoleon exhibit the boldness that was so characteristic of Napoleon? Ultimately, it was the story he chose to tell about himself that defined himself. If he bought into the truth that he was an insignificant little man of five-feet-four, he might have been content to be a shoeshine boy. But he didn’t go with that draft. He went with this: “My hand of iron was not at the extremity of my arm, it was immediately connected with my head.” That is a story illustrative of firm resolve and bold leadership. No allowance for wavering decisions.
What made Gandhi have the boldness to think that he could throw the British Empire out of India? He didn’t buy into the story that he was a 2nd class 90-pound weakling This is what he told himself: “When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. I think of it–always.”
What story are you telling about yourself? There might be a story you have been telling yourself for years that is in serious need of a rewrite.
I too had a rewriting of life–several times. When I was 11-years-old I was told that I didn’t have enough musical ability to play in the elementary school band. (In hindsight, I can’t believe that a school would tell a child such a thing. Fortunately I didn’t buy into it for too long.) The next year I convinced the school otherwise. In high school I excelled in music, was voted most talented, and ended up getting a scholarship as a saxophone major to a conservatory of music.
I also had to rewrite in my mind what I believed in regards to my ability a writer. My belief was that I just wasn’t capable of writing. I struggled in high school and in the first two years of college. When my ability finally surfaced, my English teacher at the university said my paper must have been plagiarized…it was beyond my ability. (It’s amazing the amount of negative messages people feed us.) Two years later I won a cash prize in an English department writing contest. (I finally had a teacher who acknowledged my talent.) A few years later I would write articles that were syndicated world-wide by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.
I also had to rewrite what I told myself about my ability to speak in public. I would be so nervous I would stutter. After college I joined Toastmasters and a year later I won a Toastmasters District speech contest in Los Angeles.
In our heads we all have self-defined limitations. But they are all illusions. We are not mere bodies of flesh and bones. We are consciousness, constantly flowing, moving through the disguises of limitations to discover our infinity. If we go through darkness, it is only so we see the significance of the light that is coming.
I have always liked what Kahlil Gibran said on this subject: “That which seems most feeble and be-wildered in you is the strongest and most determined.” The more resistance on the bow, the truer and swifter the arrow flies. No wonder Einstein failed math-he was just being pulled back to discover what it’s like to go at the speed of light.
