“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
~ Napoleon Hill
I just about missed this gorgeous sunrise … I could hear the rain, but then that little voice in my head said just get up and look anyway! What a perfect picture to accompany today’s topic: Nature as Bridge-Builder. Believe, friends !!
As a fitting climax to his chapter on the power of desire, Napoleon Hill tells a very personal story: One of his own son, who was born without any sign of ears.
The doctors, naturally, concluded that the child would likely be deaf and mute for life. Hill believed no such thing …
“In my own mind, I knew that my son would hear and speak. How? I was sure there must be a way, and I knew I would find it. I thought of the words of the immortal Emerson: ‘The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey. There is a guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening, we shall hear the right word’.”
I won’t spoil the story for you, but suffice it to say that Hill’s son did hear one day. And the means was discovered in the most unlikely of ways.
Of greatest consequence, Napoleon Hill never let his son think of himself as any different than anyone else. He began by creating bedtime stories that were designed to develop in him self-reliance, imagination and a strong desire to hear. As well, the stories would plant in his mind the thought that his affliction was not a liability, but an asset of great value (even though Hill had no way of knowing how this would come about !!).
“When I planted in his mind the desire to hear and talk and live as other people, there went with that impulse some strange influence that caused Nature to become bridge-builder, and span the gulf of silence between brain and the outer world … Through some strange principle, Nature wraps up in the impulse of strong desire that ‘something’ which recognizes no such word as impossible, and accepts no such reality as failure.”
Have you ever been told you were a failure or that you wouldn’t succeed ? I have. Plenty of times. How did you respond ? Did you crawl into a hole and die, or did your desire become even stronger? I started out this year by saying that I detest the words “I can’t”. You tell me I can’t, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll set out to prove you wrong. It takes great determination and persistence sometimes to prove the naysayers and “negative Nellies” of this world wrong. Don’t let them stop you !!
And remember this from the story … Nature is there to aid us in our endeavors. This is why I believe daily meditation is SO important (and twice daily looking at our Plan). Without this communion, we will very likely miss the whispers of divine guidance … those pops of inspiration … that support the rational side to our thinking ❤
Affirmation: I will surround myself with others who believe in me, beginning with the Divine.
