When I view life as an obstacle course, I realize that barriers and problems are merely things that I get over, go around, or go through. When you encounter obstacles in life sometimes you may get muddy, and other times you may get wounded. When facing obstacles, we can either be encouraged and push forward or become discouraged and quit. If you are determined to face and overcome every obstacle in your way, with each obstacle, you gain confidence and strength for the next one. Just as obstacle courses are not designed to be easy, no matter where you are on the planet and what your station in life may be, you will have difficult times and challenges to overcome.
Being disciplined to successfully navigate the obstacles we must face means that we must develop a mindset that says, there is no obstacle that I will not face and meet to the best of my ability, even if we must say as the writer of Invictus wrote, “My head is bloodied, but unbowed.” Determination will beat strength and endurance with trump speed. As Tennyson, the 19th century poet through the eyes of determined old men wrote,
“Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Barriers are not insurmountable borders, rather they build character and heroic human beings. As Chinua Achebe once said,
“ As a rule I don’t like suffering to not purpose. Suffering should be creative, should give birth to something good and lovely.”
So, if we can see the beauty beyond the barriers, we will endure whatever it takes to get there.