There are many today who fear that our society is embracing “wimp-dom.” Statements such as “it isn’t fair” and “we need to level the playing field” and “we should create rules that insure that nobody loses” celebrate the idea that we are all helpless and cannot compete and win on our own regardless of what challenges we face. Such beliefs diminish our faith in the abundant and amazing abilities and capabilities we all possess.
Embracing “Wimp-dom” ensures that when we are faced with real challenges, we are more apt to choose anxiety, despair and capitulation over fortitude, commitment, and purposeful action. We forget how powerful we truly are. We become paralyzed by the fear of what could be, even when we don’t know exactly what will be. Our negative attitude overcomes our positive attributes and, as a result, our fear of defeat becomes self-fulfilling. Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.
I’m not advocating that we should turn a blind eye and ignore what is happening around us. It’s the paralysis that fear can nurture that we must vigilantly resist. As the Greek historian Thucydides so aptly put it, “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it.”
I am powerful. So are you. I will not be a victim and I will not be defeated simply by a challenge. I am a winner, not a wimp.
Whenever I feel that the challenges I face exceed my capacity to overcome them, I will not withdraw, I will not cower. If or when I am tempted to do so, I will remind myself that I am a child of God and that my power cannot be defeated or diminished no matter what trials I might encounter. If I begin to feel limited due to adverse circumstances that appear to hold me back, I will remember that even at my most challenged, I remain capable of great things. To facilitate and nurture this attitude, whenever the need arises, I will recall the hero of this week’s Inspiration:
His mind was sharp, but his vision was blurred. He could think, but could not talk. He wanted to write, but could not use his hands. With one eye sewn shut, his only means of communication was by blinking his left eye. Yet with all his obstacles and challenges, he was able to “write” a bestselling book that was turned into a movie. Who am I talking about? Jean-Dominique Bauby the author of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
There are stories that entertain, stories that scare, and stories that motivate. This is a story of perseverance and accomplishment in the face of adversity and debilitating paralysis.
Every now and then you come across a story so powerful and compelling, that it grabs you by the throat and just won’t let go. Such is the nature of the true story of Jean- Dominique Bauby – locked in his body as one is in entombed in a diving bell, yet free to wander, dream and travel to faraway places using only his mind.
Jean-Dominique was the editor of the French ELLE magazine and lived a fast pace life in the world of fashion. Then one day in 1995 he had a massive stroke that left him completely immobile except for the movement of his left eye. Unfortunately, he was the victim of an extremely rare condition called Locked-in Syndrome. Now, just take a moment to absorb Jean-Dominique’s condition – your mind is perfectly fine, you feel pain, hot and cold, a bead of sweat rolling down your forehead, but the only thing you can move is your left eye. How would you react? Would you be able to turn your condition into something positive?
Locked-in Syndrome is characterized by full body paralysis usually caused by a massive stroke, traumatic brain injury or even by a drug overdose. Many times the only thing a victim can move is their eyes while their brain is typically undamaged. Jean-Dominique’s mind was fully functioning, aware, and learning to cope with his new body while the blinking of his left eye was his only means of communication. Imagine for just a moment what it would be like to lie perfectly still, and the only thing you can move is your left eye. As an experiment – try to read the rest of this article using only your left eye. Imagine, if you can, that this is all you that you can use; that this is your only physical connection to every communicative sensation you have previously experienced, employed and enjoyed as a functioning human being. Go ahead, try it.
Learning to “write”
The therapist assigned to Jean-Dominique devised a means to communicate by organizing the letters of the alphabet by their frequency and reading each letter. Jean-Dominique would blink once when the correct letter was read that matched the letter in the word he was thinking. He would painstakingly spell each word in the sentence he was thinking. Using this method Jean-Dominique was able to pen his memoir. He tells how he would mentally write, edit and rewrite his sentences before communicating them to his therapist.
Making a Choice
“My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas’s court”
The above quote from Jean-Dominique’s book speaks volumes about his character and his ability to overcome unimaginable adversity. He had a choice to make: to either lay there and play the part of a vegetable or accept his situation and try to make some good of it. Fortunately for us, he chose the latter. Using only his mind, he was free to wander the world, visit with friends or imagine himself in another time. With a blink of an eye, he wrote a book. What is it that makes some people “overcome” adversity, while others never really seem to recover?
Do we have the strength to make the same choice? Would we choose to be a winner or a wimp under this same circumstance? Should we feel some guilt and shame for what we so easily label as adversity and how we react to the perceived inconveniences we encounter in our everyday lives?
Near the end of his book, Bauby is reduced to examining the contents of the half-opened purse of his stenographic assistant, Claude. Napkins, folded franc notes, metro tickets, keys, “keys” he thinks:
“Does the cosmos contain keys for opening up my diving bell? A subway line with no terminus? A currency strong enough to buy my freedom back? We must keep looking. I’ll be off now.”
Thus he ends the book. On the book jacket it says, “Jean-Dominque Bauby died two days after the French publication of his book. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a lasting testament to life.”
“I had the blues because I had no shoes until upon the street I met a man who had no feet.” – Ancient Persian Saying
Have an AWE-full weekend!
William J. “Bill” Bacqué