Dhondy Posted April 14, 2012 Posted April 14, 2012 Occasionally greatness touches us all in fleeting moments of inspiration. For a moment, you have an incandescently brilliant insight, a solution to a problem that had seemed opaque. You think..."Could this be the person I have always aspired to be?" Alas, all too often such inspired moments are brief, like a Magnesium flash and then gone. For the most part, it's back to the drudgery, nose to the grindstone, trying to do ordinary things in a studied, workmanlike way. But those ephemeral moments serve one purpose. They show us how elusive true greatness is. For most of us, it will never come to pass. Or will it? What's the solution? Study greatness. Be a student of your art. Leave behind the petty politicking, the self serving scribes who seek to emphasize the negatives and home in on the ways of those who truly made a difference to other people's lives, past and present. It could change the way you view life. Around a decade ago, when this millennium was still nascent and wet behind the years, Australian doctor Barry Marshall was looking for a volunteer to be infected by a new bacterium he had found in the stomach. Marshall's theory was that this bug was responsible for most ulcers in the stomach and duodenum. When no help was forthcoming, Marshall swallowed the entire contents of a culture dish containing the putative organism Helicobacter pylori himself. Weeks of pain and ulceration followed, but his theory was proven, with the little matter of a Nobel in Medicine shared with co-worker Robin Warren in 2005. Or take Daniel Shechtman. In 1982, working in Washington on an US Department of Defence funded project, he noticed an unusual pattern to a crystal he was examining under the electron microscope. He showed his chief of staff his findings and expounded a theory. The reward was expulsion from his research group for "unscientific" conduct. Last October, Shechtman received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on quasi-crystals, a technology that drives current shaving razors. It doesn't have to be Science. Back in 1993, a young mother, seven years out of University, saw herself as the biggest failure she had ever known. She was newly divorced, jobless, and had no means of supporting herself...except to pen down her ideas about a wizard growing up in a school of magic. The story took shape in an Edinburgh cafe and two years later JK Rowling's, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" was the first of a series of seven record breaking books, with the most successful film series in history to follow. When President Herbert Hoover, the longest retired US President until recently overtaken by Jimmy Carter, was once asked how he dealt with the myriad critics who blamed him for the great depression, his response was "I outlived the bastards". Most of you are perhaps too young to have read the story of Wilma Rudolph, possibly America's greatest ever female athlete. Paralysed as a child of 12 by polio, Rudolph went on to win three gold medals in track & field at the 1960 Rome Olympics (for the discerning, they were in 100 m, 200 m and 4x100 relay) against almost insurmountable odds. It's a story that has inspired many generations of sportsmen and women over the years because it epitomises those who simply refuse to believe in boundaries...boundaries to human willpower. It's all too easy to succumb to nihilism and apocalyptic forecasting by pundits who have an axe to grind. A never ending recession, rising unemployment, disenchanted youths without a future, PhDs sending in hundreds of fruitless applications and ending up serving pizzas...A recent survey showed that current medical students in America were the gloomiest in living memory about their prospects, facing real term cutbacks under Obamacare, falling pay levels and more scrutiny. In Britain, it is anticipated that by 2020, there will be 60% more fully qualified doctors than the nation can afford to employ. I give these examples as these are from my own area of work. You can sense the despair of young doctors who face many years of hard work and crippling debts only to be faced by the spectre of unemployment or emigration. It doesn't have to be that way. If you can bring yourself to imbibe lessons from those great men and women who refused to accept defeat, and thus soldiered on, step after weary step, in time you will see that a little bit of eminence is within reach of the humblest of us. In chronicling greatness and being its student, you improve your odds of achieving it yourself.
Nova Posted April 14, 2012 Posted April 14, 2012 Inspirational piece :nice: A strong work ethic is central to achieving anything...keep on working hard in your field and you are bound to go somewhere. Success, like DNA, is constructed of a few basic building blocks: tenacity, focus, and the old Woody Allen line about just showing up.
Crookbond Posted April 14, 2012 Posted April 14, 2012 Dhondy, Nice article. Please do archive it on a personal blog.
Mariyam Posted April 15, 2012 Posted April 15, 2012 Nice write up. Reminds me of a famous interview that Winston Churchill gave Mark Tully. When asked how he should be viewed by history books; as the person who won the UK the second world war or as the person who was responsible for the break up of the British empire, he replied: " History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it"
Anonymous Posted April 15, 2012 Posted April 15, 2012 Nice one Dhondy. On a related note, I love Richard Dawkins's famous quote, Ac33dOAgqus
Shehezaada Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 great, motivating, and inspirational post Doc Sahab. You can achieve anything as long as you give 100%
Ram Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 What's the solution? Study greatness. Be a student of your art. Leave behind the petty politicking, the self serving scribes who seek to emphasize the negatives and home in on the ways of those who truly made a difference to other people's lives, past and present. It could change the way you view life. Truly inspiring. Thank you Doc!
Recommended Posts