HAD visited an art exhibition the other day and as usual stared at all the modern art on the walls without understanding head or tail of what the artist was trying to say.
I wandered outside and walked over to a pavement artist; something caught my attention, “How much?” I whispered looking at the poster he was selling.
“Ten bucks!” he said. “I want two,” I said and gave him a fifty, “keep the change!” “Why did you do that?” asked my two friends who had also left the exhibition with me.
“It’s worth a million!” I said holding the poster up to hide the tears in my eyes. I was sixteen when I’d first seen those words in a book.
I’d stared at them, reread them, then wrote them down in red ink and it stuck by the side of my bed, “They’ve taken me through life,” I said. Harold an accountant was ready to retire. His wife Martha, however, was less enthusiastic.
As she explained to a friend, “Harold has never done anything that required physical exertion. When he retires, he will sit in his easy chair and expect me to bring him his food.”
But to Martha’s surprise, soon after he retired Harold joined a health club. And one night, when he arrived home from exercise class, he announced, “I signed up for the wrestling tournament. I’m going to wrestle Friday night!”
Martha was shocked. “Please don’t do it, Harold,” she begged. She stayed away that Friday evening as Harold wrestled. Then about 10:00 p.m., just as she predicted, two men practically carried Harold home. He lay down on the couch, every muscle strained and bruised
Before she could speak, he sputtered, “Martha, I won!”
Harold worked hard for his success, but he proved that when you combine sweat with the belief you can do a certain thing, tremendous results follow.
In my mind I call Harold on the phone, “How did you do it?” I ask. “A poster outside an art gallery!” says Harold, “words that changed my life!”
“Harold!” I whisper, “let’s say them together!” “If you think you’re beaten you are, If you think you dare not, you don’t, If you like to win, but think you can’t, It’s almost certain you won’t! And then we shout together: But, life’s battles don’t always go, To the stronger or faster man, For sooner or later, the man who wins, Is the man who thinks he can!
Those words are etched in my mind, have taken me through childhood and tough times later, but I’ve fixed those posters at home, one for my children and one again for me, because that one I wrote in red ink must have faded away, though never from my mind..!
