Helen Keller is truly one of the remarkable figures of history. She is an incredible example of how a person can overcome the most intense adversity to make something remarkable of her life. It’s time to reflect upon what we can learn from her incredible existence.
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Transcript
Hi guys, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome back to today's message.
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Speaker:You're ready to go.
Speaker:Let's do this today.
Speaker:We are going to be sharing a quote from the incredible Helen Keller.
Speaker:If you're not familiar with her story.
Speaker:Lost her ability to basically communicate her eyesight, her speech
Speaker:at the age of about 19 months.
Speaker:And you see this incredible journey where she just went on to become
Speaker:one of the great figures of history.
Speaker:Somebody very familiar with suffering.
Speaker:I'll put a link to her bio here today, so you can go and
Speaker:check her out credible story.
Speaker:But the quote I want to share with you today from her is really powerful.
Speaker:Let's do it.
Speaker:Character cannot be developed in ease and.
Speaker:Only through experience of trial and suffering.
Speaker:Can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved?
Speaker:How often do we find ourselves here?
Speaker:Listening to me talk about the way that I think the universe is structured
Speaker:a few days ago, I was talking about this with a quote from Alfred Adler.
Speaker:Some of you would remember that.
Speaker:We are a culture created for comfort.
Speaker:We're a culture where you can pretty much just get through
Speaker:life without too much difficulty.
Speaker:You can innate the ties, the pain in your life through any number of substances.
Speaker:You can distract yourself with any number of entertainments, but it's same as that.
Speaker:The ability to grow in our souls, in our character, in the essence of who
Speaker:we are, doesn't come through ease.
Speaker:Not many of us become extraordinary people by sitting on the couch.
Speaker:Those of us who really try and develop the raw material of what we've been
Speaker:given often have to do it by pushing against some pretty big obstacles.
Speaker:Those obstacles could be psychological.
Speaker:They could be relational, they could be physical.
Speaker:There could be professional, but it's the ability to encounter
Speaker:difficulty and suffering and push.
Speaker:That somehow leads those of us who want to do it into a different experience of
Speaker:reality, a different experience of life.
Speaker:And I think what happens with suffering and difficulty is it either breaks
Speaker:you and makes you bitter and you start looking for a cause and you
Speaker:start looking for someone to blame.
Speaker:You start looking for someone who's responsible for why?
Speaker:Well, I mean, how much is that a thing at the moment?
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Our culture, a political culture particularly is predicated on this
Speaker:idea that somewhere there is someone to blame that somewhere there is.
Speaker:Who is responsible for why you are unhappy and if you vote for them, they're
Speaker:going to make things better for you.
Speaker:I mean, look, how's that working out as a global culture, you know, like,
Speaker:do we seem to be a more adjusted, happy, balanced, tolerant patient
Speaker:loving, you know, developing world right at the moment, the time of
Speaker:recording this, it's not looking at.
Speaker:There might be a place for governments to help, uh, deal with terrible injustices.
Speaker:But outside of that, this idea that someone outside ourselves
Speaker:can magically fix our lives for us is I think really, probably.
Speaker:Gandy used to say this, right.
Speaker:You know, be the change that you want to see.
Speaker:Do you want to change the world?
Speaker:Well, it's a good place to start and it's not necessarily in the political process.
Speaker:I've got a real issue with it.
Speaker:I think, you know, my kids are always asking me, what do
Speaker:you think of this politician?
Speaker:What do you think of that one?
Speaker:I said, I think that, I think what I think of every single politician
Speaker:that the human, that there'll be some that are better than others.
Speaker:There'll be some that are slightly better than others,
Speaker:but many of them will be broken.
Speaker:Complex people like all of us.
Speaker:So I think one of the things we need to do is stop looking for
Speaker:salvation in the political process.
Speaker:Stop looking for salvation in some kind of outside force.
Speaker:What we need to do is realize that the difficulties and strains and struggles
Speaker:of our relationships, our work, our physical bodies, uh, invitations
Speaker:to the duke growth and development.
Speaker:And we don't go looking for it, doing we, most of us don't we just
Speaker:want to kind of get through each day relatively similar to the one before it.
Speaker:But if you want a different result, you have to do different things.
Speaker:You have to seek out some difficult things.
Speaker:You have to push yourself when you don't feel like it.
Speaker:I've been saying in recent episodes that I'm currently coaching a
Speaker:sporting team and you can see it.
Speaker:You can see it in real time.
Speaker:You can see a group of X number of people, and there are some who want
Speaker:to push and some who want to grow.
Speaker:And it's a mystery.
Speaker:It really is a mystery, but all I can say to you today, as you
Speaker:watch this, if you are watching.
Speaker:I want to put the thought in your head that it's the hard things in
Speaker:your life at the moment that have the opportunity to grow and develop.
Speaker:If you can face them, push through them, accept them.
Speaker:Be decent in them.
Speaker:Be a good human in the midst of suffering.
Speaker:Avoid blame and rage and judgment operate in acceptance and invitation
Speaker:that, yes, this is difficult, but I am going to grow through it.
Speaker:That's your choice.
Speaker:You can choose that option.
Speaker:That's the part that is you in your power.
Speaker:That's the part that our culture is telling us is not in our power, but it
Speaker:is the ability to choose our response.
Speaker:I mean, it's difficult circumstances.
Speaker:Helen Keller could have just caught up in a bowl.
Speaker:And never grown, but her ability to face terrible hardship and
Speaker:suffering led her to become one of the great figures of history.
Speaker:So make sure you check out her biography below.
Speaker:All right friends.
Speaker:That's it from me.
Speaker:Let's get into character.
Speaker:Let's get into growth.
Speaker:Let's get into acceptance.
Speaker:Let's accept the invitation of hardship.
Speaker:Let's accept the invitation of difficulty it's growing the process.
Speaker:Make sure you've subscribed my name's Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:I'm going to have another message for you tomorrow.
