What does it mean to grow a tough skin? It means appreciating
that challenges are part of living, and taking them on without
murmuring. Those who refuse to accept this truth are chewed up and spat
out like gum that has lost its taste.
I will never forget how
fascinated I felt when I first read the story of how a then nobody named
Abebe Bikila won the 1960 Olympic Marathon without shoes!Ugandan
athletes blame the government for their failures on the track, but the
Ethiopian runner was not going to be stopped, track shoes or no track
shoes! If you say it was easy because he probably was a poor African who
had never worn shoes, and could therefore not run and win in them, you
are wrong because he returned four years later, and raced, this time
with shoes, and won again moreover by the largest margin in Olympic
history (four minutes 8 seconds).
The fact that he was still recovering from appendectomy proved this guy had grown a tough skin that made him unstoppable. One commentator said Bikili's "Olympic marathons galvanized the running world and heralded the era of African dominance in distance running…He is forever captured in Olympic history as a slender figure running barefoot through the streets of Rome."
Muhammad Ali is another inspirational character who in his heydays developed such a tough skin that the idea of losing never even crossed his mind. He used to taunt his opponents saying, if you sleep and dream beating Ali, you had better wake up and apologise.
In the true life based movie The Pursuit of Happiness, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is abandoned by his wife. But he confronts his misfortunes without backing down and eventually becomes an enviable winner. It is a story that wonderfully epitomises the cliche that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and Robert Schuller\s classic book title, Tough Times Don't Last But Tough People Do.
There is also a blind man on Kampala streets who plays the guitar so passionately so he can feed his family. I admire him because the challenge of lack of sight has not stopped him.
I challenge us too to grow a tough skin. Remember this: the darkest hour of night is shortly before the break of dawn. Similarly, the greater the challenges the greater the destiny if you don't give up.
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| The waves of life will always roll. You must row on no matter what! |
The fact that he was still recovering from appendectomy proved this guy had grown a tough skin that made him unstoppable. One commentator said Bikili's "Olympic marathons galvanized the running world and heralded the era of African dominance in distance running…He is forever captured in Olympic history as a slender figure running barefoot through the streets of Rome."
Muhammad Ali is another inspirational character who in his heydays developed such a tough skin that the idea of losing never even crossed his mind. He used to taunt his opponents saying, if you sleep and dream beating Ali, you had better wake up and apologise.
In the true life based movie The Pursuit of Happiness, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is abandoned by his wife. But he confronts his misfortunes without backing down and eventually becomes an enviable winner. It is a story that wonderfully epitomises the cliche that when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and Robert Schuller\s classic book title, Tough Times Don't Last But Tough People Do.
There is also a blind man on Kampala streets who plays the guitar so passionately so he can feed his family. I admire him because the challenge of lack of sight has not stopped him.
I challenge us too to grow a tough skin. Remember this: the darkest hour of night is shortly before the break of dawn. Similarly, the greater the challenges the greater the destiny if you don't give up.
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