If you can take it, you can make it. If you can take unjust criticism and insults without losing your temper, you can make it. If you can make sacrifice and self-denial without complaining, you can make it. “There is one virtue, “wrote George Sand, “the eternal sacrifice of self.” If you can take self-discipline without getting discouraged, you can make it. Ponder these words of William Penn: “No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown,” If you can take reverses, adversity and disappointments without giving up, you can make it.
Pat Seed, a woman in her fifties, was told a few years ago that she had cancer and only six months to live. Instead of resigning herself to her situation, she immediately embarked on a fund-raising campaign to buy for the Christie Hospital Manchester a sophisticated scanner for the early detection of cancer. She worked so hard at this that she scarcely had time to think about anything else, including her own terminal illness. She not only outlived her six months; today, six years later, she has raised more than three million pounds for the life-saving equipment. She has been presented with an MBE by the Queen at Buckingham Palace, and she has been declared entirely free from cancer. Moreover, over 5000 patients have now been scanned by the equipment bought through her fund-raising, and probably many lives saved. She reacted positively to her situation she was able to change it radically.
All big personalities are dreamers. They see things in the soft of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others like Pat Seed nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.
Whatever the mind can conceive, dream and determine, it can achieve.
