Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Every Sunday, after I go to Mass, I meet a friend for lunch.  She has two sons, both of whom have struggled with addiction issues.  Both have also been trying to figure out what to do with their lives.  The younger son, Rhett, has tried to find a career of sorts but he’s struggled because he did some not-so-smart stuff a few years back.  Because of his record, he finds it hard to find a job with a future and is waiting for these items to “fall off” his record.  Even then, finding a job he’ll like is a challenge.

Recently, Rhett has been showing signs of moving forward.  First, he decided that even though it may be difficult to succeed in this overcrowded field, he would enroll in a film study certificate program at a local junior college.  (As a graduate of a junior college system, I can only say, “Thank heavens for junior colleges!”)

To get started, he enrolled in six units during the summer semester.  For someone starting out cold, summer semester is a huge challenge.  The same amount of study material is squeezed into half the time.  This means he is reading/writing/taking tests/completing projects at a much more brutal rate than during a “normal” semester.

A Key Decision

Rhett dug right in to his classes.  He had several films that he needed to view from a student’s perspective and then write papers/essays about what he learned.  As he made his way through the films, there were three tests he needed to take.  He took the first test and only managed a “D”.  At this point, Rhett was in great danger of giving up again.  BUT, he really wanted to stay in this program, so for the first time in his life, he decided to change strategy and try something different.  He studied.

Now this may seem self-evident to you and me of the all-nighters, but to Rhett, it was a new idea.  He had done the work required and he believed that he knew enough to take the test.  He found out that he was wrong.  So, he studied some for the second test and he did much better.  And – this is the important part – he learned from the experience.  He decided that there was a correlation between studying and test results. (ya think?!!)

So, Rhett did it again.  He didn’t just study some, he crammed for two whole days.  For Rhett this was the equivalent of running a marathon.  He’d never done anything like this before in his life.  And it paid off -  He got an “A” on the test.  He’ll probably get a “C” for the course, but he’s close enough to a “B” that the instructor could decide to push him over the edge.

Hello Personal Power – Bye Bye Learned Helplessness

This is just immense. Until he passed both of these classes, he believed that he probably couldn’t do it.  He wanted to, he just was afraid that he couldn’t.  He took the risk anyway, and in that one little decision, he moved from being the victim in his own story to being the hero of his own story.

My friend and I are so proud of what he has accomplished.  (He probably doesn’t care that I’m proud, but he sure does care that his mother is proud.)

Learning that you have the power to change your life is an ongoing lesson.  Every day, we make decision after decision – will we wait for someone to rescue us or will we take action?  Every time we decide to “try something” we have chosen to use our power and it gets easier to “do it again.”  Not everything we try works, but in the very act of trying, there is victory.  Even if we fail in the attempt, we have the opportunity to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by learning from what we tried.

Claiming your personal power doesn’t ensure that you will succeed every time, it just ensures that you won’t still be sitting there waiting when you could have changed the course of your life.  The  possibility of changing your life makes up for all the disappointments that we have along the way and makes the successes that much sweeter.