By Dave McCracken

A good challenge forces you to reach down deep inside and raise yourself to the occasion!

Dave Mack

The yawns being given off by my friend permeated the room so heavily that they clearly placed an uncomfortable shadow over the enthusiasm all the rest of us were feeling. We were on one of the most exciting treasure hunting expeditions I have ever been engaged in, and I was thanking my lucky stars just to be part of the expedition. All of the people involved were very good at their jobs and were enthusiastically involved with this project except my friend. He was bored. In fact, he was so caught up in his own personal boredom, that he was certain everyone else, and the whole world, was also seeing the world in the same mundane way. Talk about being on a different wavelength!

After our planning meeting was over, I gently approached my friend about his outlook. He agreed wholeheartedly with my observation. His viewpoint was because of some unknown factor that he could not quite pin down; he just was not able to take on the project (or life) with enthusiasm like the rest of us.

I asked if someone was sick in his family, or if he had financial or other personal problems that were holding him back. He said there was nothing like that holding him back. To him, for as long as he could remember, he was not able to experience real enthusiasm.

I don’t think any of us can expect to get more out of life than what we invest of ourselves into it. Wouldn’t it be wrong to take more than we give? How can we expect our passion to come from something outside of ourselves?

If we put passion in, perhaps we can get more passion and excitement out of it, whatever the endeavor.

My friend was waiting for some influence outside of himself to give him something to be passionate about. He was looking for some hidden reason why he was not feeling enthusiasm. I suggest that all of this might be a “backwards” approach.

I suggest the impact of life upon us (how we end up being affected by it) is exactly as we choose it to be. If we decide that the way we are going to feel most of the time is due to some (or lack of) outside or hidden influence or the way others have treated us (or not treated us) in the past, naturally, that’s the way it will be for us.

But it does not have to be that way. It can be any way we choose it to be. There are any number of responses we can choose for every given situation.

You do not have to win every battle to be a winner. If you win every time, you are not putting yourself to the real test. That’s not really winning, is it?

You do not have to be “rich” to be successful. Money is not life’s measuring stick.

Life must have worthwhile challenges for life to be interesting. A good challenge requires a fair chance (perhaps even likelihood) that you could fail in the endeavor. Real challenges make you fear the consequences of failing. A good challenge puts you to the real test. It forces you to reach down deep inside and raise yourself to the occasion. It makes you improve yourself. It makes you become more passionate, more brave, more tolerant of others and more secure in yourself.

A real challenge forces you to live life more fully!

I suggested to my friend that perhaps if he took on something more challenging he might discover his own personal enthusiasm. This thought brightened him up considerably.

Some philosopher once said that if taking on something is really difficult for you, try taking on twice as much. Then, the first limit you set for yourself will not seem like too much, anymore. There is certainly some profound wisdom in this philosophy. We do indeed set our own limits for ourselves by the decisions we make or the decisions of others that we agree to.

Ironically, my consistent observation has been that those people who are most challenged in their lives are happiest, most passionate and most enthusiastic even if there is a great deal of pain and misery in their lives. This is true in war-torn Cambodia. It is true in the remote portions of Madagascar where there is no medicine to save a sick child and where people work their guts out just to eat. In all their pain and suffering, those people really have passion in their lives. They are truly thankful for the little they do have. They are happy to be alive today. The few comfortable, good moments really have meaning to them.

“Perhaps we need the challenge of an occasional crocodile in our lives!”

Please do not misunderstand the point I am trying to make. I am not saying that pain and suffering are good. The point I am trying to make is that it is perhaps difficult to experience real passion and enthusiasm in our lives if we are so comfortable that the only adventure we experience is on the television.

Yes, we experience television with a passion. But what about life?

Perhaps, in the end, it is not about rich or poor — or about winning or losing. Just maybe, it is about experiencing everything out of life you can make happen. My guess is that this comes from putting in as much as you have to give. And that comes from being truly challenged in life, maybe even taking some chances.

We each set our own limits for ourselves. If we are not passionately trying to overcome those limits, then maybe we are cheating ourselves out of the best that life has to offer.

We easily forget this lesson in the West, where day-to-day life is not as dangerous as it might be. In many of the Third World countries I have visited, people have to face actual physical dangers in their everyday lives such as crocodiles. Let’s face it; there is not a lot of time to worry ourselves about petty concerns when we are concerned about getting eaten by a crocodile. Perhaps we need the challenge of an occasional crocodile in our lives!

 

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