How many of us have experienced a time when everything seemed to go wrong simultaneously? You know…take a step forward and step on a nail. Move forward, watching your next step this time, and hit your head on a low hanging plant– which incidentally– swings off the hook and falls on your foot. You understand what I’m talking about, right?

We all go through it. And I think almost everyone I know has been through it this year. I also think its a safe assumption that most people will be happy to see the year 2008 in the rear view mirror.

I have a great friend that was diagnosed with colon cancer in the winter of 2007. After emergency surgery and months of agonizing and sickening chemotherapy, she emerged from her illness, well. But after “stepping on that nail” she hit her head on the potted plant of her career, took a stumble and got hit on the foot, again. I’m not making light of her tribulations but rather holding her up as an example of someone who keeps moving forward– never losing her effervescence and bubbly disposition, but takes life in stride and continues on. And becomes stronger every single day– a light for all of her friends, me included.

The boxer, James Corbett, won the heavyweight title from John L. Sullivan in 1892. He was talking about people like my friend when he said, “You become a champion by fighting one more round. When things are tough, you fight one more round.”

The 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, expanded on Corbett’s thought with these words, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

I guess I am thinking about my friend today, because I had lunch with her Christmas Day, 2006. That was her last full meal until her colon cancer had been diagnosed and emergency surgery performed– fully a month later. I didn’t see her this year for Christmas, but I do know she had a houseful. And I do know that she is healthy albeit battered by 2008 like we all are, but stable, getting it all back together, and maybe stronger than she has ever been.

I think 2009 will be a transformative year for her, like I think (and hope) it will be for a lot of people.

Did you step on a nail recently? Have you banged your head on a potted plant and watched it fall on your toe? Don’t despair.

Fight one more round.

If you’d like to continue reading, here is a four stanza poem by William Henley about being “unconquerable.” Perhaps it will encourage you further.

“Invictus”

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole;
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced, nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade;
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll:
I am the master of my fate.
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henry

Tags: calvin coolidge, colon cancer, determination, education, persistence, william ernest henley

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