Monday, May 22, 2017
DETERMINATION AND
HEROISM
It was the year 1960 and the biggest sporting event, the
Olympics, was taking place in Rome, Italy. It was at this occasion that 28 year-old Abebe Bikila amazed the world
when, unknown and unheralded, he won the Olympic marathon. He attracted the
world’s attention not only by being the first East African to win a medal, but
also because he ran the event barefoot. A stadium in Addis Ababa is named in his honor.
In life you need
to seize any moment. Abebe Bikila was far from winning let alone participating
at the event. He was included in the Ethiopian Olympic team only at the last
moment, as the plane to Rome was about to leave, as a replacement for Wami
Biratu, who was seriously ill.
This is a
wonderful lesson that once in a lifetime, for one mortal moment, one must make
a grab for immortality: if not, one has not lived. Heroism would not come on a
silver platter. Heroism is a result of sweat, pain, tears, falling, rising, and
moving on regardless of circumstances.
Abebe Bikila
gives one crucial lesson. After the race, when he was asked why he had run
barefoot, he replied, “I wanted the whole world to know that my country,
Ethiopia, has always won with determination and heroism.”
In life we chase
many dreams and we get frustrated that we achieve so little. The reason is just
so simple, what we put in in terms of effort is far too below what we
anticipate to reap in the end. We lack the determination to soldier on despite
any challenges we encounter along the way. We give up many times and restart
again as we always seek the easiest route to success. The bitter pill to
swallow with life is that success and realisation of dreams only come through
passing through deserts of failure, thorny paths of disappointment, and rowing
over the seas of shame. It is only determination that makes heroes to be what
they are.
It was a shameful
thing for Abebe Bikila to run barefoot at such an international stage. He shut
his mind off shame and was determined to prove a point. He never mind about the
opinion of others that he was little known and was only a mere replacement of
an ill athlete. He was there to seize the moment.
One fact however
is that when we achieve all the pains encountered are forgotten and heroism
songs become the new order. When Abebe Bikila won he was recognised and had a
stadium named after him. He put his name in the history books and he became an
inspirational figure.
The simple thing
with life is that if you think you can, you can. And if you think you also
can’t you are equally right. Those that believe that they can have the
determination and will to move forward. Those that believe that they can’t all
they do is to accept fate. They are not the igniters of change as they let
change happen to them.
There is
something unique among creative personalities, leaders and innovators. They believe
in themselves, in their own decisions and leave aside those who don’t share
their point of view. They demonstrate such confidence in their ideas, such that
fear of failure, which follows the others, retreats. They refuse to stay in one line with
mediocrity. They refuse to act according to the book. They write their own
‘book’ of life and create by denying traditions. They can survive failure after
failure but not change their belief in their own self. They move forward, push
to the edge, and live their dreams.
In a motivational video entitled ‘the life of my dreams’, it
is said that these people have such self-confidence, that others start to think
that they know where the levers of the world are and how to operate them.
We fail more because we lack determination and because we
lack determination then we aim too low. It is time that we challenge the
impossible, that we create keys to unlocking a new future never before
anticipated. It is time that we work twice as much as we do and that we never
give up. Les Brown was right, if it was easy, everyone would do it.
What are you waiting for; pursue your dream with
determination. Be obsessed with your dream such that all other things are seen
to mean nothing. Chinese great Confucius well says: ‘identify what’s important
to you, eliminate everything else and finally automate, delegate, get help.’ To
achieve you have to be crazy.
