A friend of mine, Ado*, is one of Africa’s most decorated sprinters. He grew up in the northern region of Ghana, a relatively underdeveloped and rural place where folks follow a simple, agrarian life ideal for producing self-reliance and resourcefulness.   When he was 5 years old, Ado found himself on a pier playing with older neighborhood boys. The river was large and dark. He’d never seen such a vast body of water before so he peered over the edge of the pier. As he did, one of the older boys shoved him into the deep water “as a joke.” Unable to swim and terrified, he flailed, swallowed what seemed like gallons of water and tried to scream… He almost drowned to death. Eventually, some of the older boys pulled him out. He clamored onto the pier, coughed, sputtered, shook water out of his ears and shivered, but he was neither sad nor angry.     He was determined. He stood up. In that moment, all he could see, all he could hear and all he could think about was the river itself. He squinted at it, pursed his lips, walked over to the edge of the pier and spat in it, oblivious to the jeering boys behind him.   “Next time we meet,” he said to it, “I’m going to save myself.”                     When Ado told me this story, I knew I’d just learned how and why he’d ascended to such incredible athletic heights. His is an attitude some would call “the heart of a champion.” In that moment, his was a gaze some might describe as “the eye of the tiger.” Others would call him plain crazy. Naïve, maybe. But imagine a skinny little kid standing next to a seeming endless expanse of water – an unfamiliar, dark, swollen and life-threatening body endowed with the unmatched power and unforgiving force of Mother Nature herself, and determining to take it on. That which almost killed him, he was determined to subdue, to conquer, to rise above. What grit. What resolve. What vigor. What commitment to doing the work that we’re so often inclined to shy away from – work that induces not only fear, but legitimate terror, maximum vulnerability and certain uncertainty in us (for good reason).   And what faith.   You see, the ability to squarely look at something that has hurt you – and in some cases, almost killed you, takes a certain modicum of wisdom, composure, self-reliance and courage. Then, the ability to go from squarely looking at it to making a decision to conquer it… Now this takes something more. This takes the faith that despite appearances (small boy versus mighty river), (1) you have everything you need to handle what has hurt you, (2) you were built to go through these types of trials and (3) that thing, person, situation, place, relationship, challenge, etc. is precisely (and maybe exclusively) the training ground you need to develop the skills you need to save yourself – from it and from any/every foe to come, real or imagined.      Re-telling Ado’s story always brings a tear to my eye, elevates a tiny lump in my throat and/or erects goose-bumps up and down both of my arms. It reminds me to stop running from and start walking up to those rivers; to calmly square my shoulders and simply decide, with faith: when (not if) we meet again, I’ll have developed the skills I need to handle that which has hurt, and in some cases almost killed me. Sometimes (not always!), what doesn’t kill us renews our focus and allows us to become more skilled with the precise skills we need to navigate, and even enjoy every river we’re blessed to face.   *name changed Share this:FacebookLinkedInLike this:Like...