Malcolm GauldWhat does it mean to “accept” the hand? It means that you have let go of resentments. Let’s say that you have come to realize that you must work/study harder then most of your peers in order to excel academically. It’s one thing to realize it. It’s another to accept it. You’ll know that you have accepted it when you simply start working hard and don’t care what everyone else is doing.
To give a personal example of my own, throughout my athletic career, I resented my lack of speed. I was the slowest player on my high school and college lacrosse teams. Today I realize that the persistence I had to put forth in order to overcompensate for my lack of speed ultimately caused me to develop a strong work ethic that has been a major positive force in my life. I might not have developed that work ethic had I been faster.
So, you figure out what you need to do to get it done. Then you do it. You also have to develop a “kryptonite detector.” In my case, I joined the fraternity that I did not want to join. The one I wanted to join was a major party house. Sensing that that would not work for me (i.e., the kryptonite detector), I joined a fraternity where they partied on the weekend but had an ethic where if you wanted to party during the week, you took it outside. That wasn’t what I wanted, but it was what I needed — and I know you’ve heard that before! In that situation, the temptation was to join the house I wanted to join and prove that I had self-discipline. (It sounds like you may have taken that approach.) The smarter move was to realize and accept that I do not have all that much self-discipline. So, let’s not put myself in a position where I need to exhibit so much of it. It was all about knowing myself. (However, don’t think that I didn’t also make a lot of bonehead moves in my college days!) This is just one of the good ones.
Onward, Malcolm Gauld
