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Tal Ben-Shahar in his book
Choose the Life You Want writes that
until 1954, running the mile under four minutes was considered a physical
impossibility. Doctors and scientists all agreed that the four-minute mark
represented the physiological limit of human ability. The best runners in the
world confirmed the experts’ view by closing in on the four-minute mile but
never bettering it. Runners spoke of the “brick wall,” an impenetrable barrier
that existed at the four-minute mark.
Despite the prevailing
conventional wisdom, Roger Bannister, a medical student at Oxford University, believed that he could run a mile in
under four minutes. He was dismissed by other athletes and the scientific
community as detached, unrealistic. On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister broke the
world record for the mile, running the distance in three minutes and fifty-nine
seconds. The impossible had become
reality! But there is more: only six weeks after Bannister’s achievement,
John Landy, an Australian runner, ran the mile in three minutes and fifty-eight
seconds. A year later, three runners broke the four-minute barrier in a single
race. Since 1954, the four-minute mile has been surpassed thousands of times.
The impenetrable barrier, it turned out, was a product of the mind – and it was
broken by the mind.
The lesson to be learned
from this story is that our beliefs –
whether we are optimistic (I can!) or
pessimistic (I can’t…) – play a
significant role in creating our reality. This does not mean that we can
throw reality out the window and that everything that we hope and wish for will
come true, but it does imply that being hopeful and optimistic about life and
believe in one selves can make it happen. George Bernard Shaw once says, “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I
dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” Where do your beliefs
limit you? What barriers can you overcome on your way to fulfilling your
dreams?
Don’t be a pessimist,
Be hopeful and optimistic.
Lord, Give
Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)
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