Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, went to Mexico just over a year back with family and friends on a much-needed vacation. Around 4 o'clock on May 1st, he went to the gym to work out and in the course of that workout, suffered a cardiac arrhythmia. By the time they got him to a hospital, it was too late. This was quite a shock, as you can imagine, for family members, because he was in good health. It took them a while to get over it, especially his wife Sheryl Sandberg, who most of us are familiar with as the COO of Facebook.
Sheryl Sandberg, in an address to the University of California, at Berkeley graduation class this past Saturday, looks back at that event and said, "I learnt about the depths of sadness and the brutality of loss. But I also learnt that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom, find the surface and breathe again." I like the imagery that she gives, that when life sucks you under, you can kick against the bottom and make your way to the top, find the surface and breathe again. Very often when we go down, it's a sinking feeling. Yet, the bottom is an avenue for us to use that last bit of strength to kick up and head for the surface again.
I remember when I was growing up; there was a clown that had a ball on its nose. You could punch it as hard as you wanted, it would go down and bounce back up again. I know that many parents used it, and we did, to get excess energy out of their children so that they would finally wind down and go to bed. No matter how many times you hit it, that clown would always bounce back with a smile on his face.
What is this quality of coming back after an adversity or a tragedy? Psychologists call it resilience. Psychology Today defines it as that "ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back stronger than ever. Rather than letting failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise from the ashes." Many people have had their dreams shattered, and I'm sure that some of you reading this, too, may have, or even now, be going through it.
I know many luminaries who have had their dreams shattered. In yesterday's newspaper, there was an article about those who didn't get into their dream college and it made for interesting reading. Warren Buffet was one – he was rejected by Harvard Business School; he finally went on to Columbia University instead. Sergey Brin, Google co-founder was rejected by MIT; went on to Stanford University. Tom Hanks wanted to go to MIT and Villanova, and couldn't attend either of them; finally went to Chabot, and he says, "That place made me what I am today." Steven Spielberg was rejected from the University of Southern California School of Cinema Arts; finally went to Cal State Long Beach. John Kerry was rejected from Harvard; went on to Yale. President Obama was rejected from Swarthmore College and finished up at Occidental College, from where he transferred to Columbia University. All of them didn't allow these rejections to change the course of what they believed their life was meant to be. In fact, Warren Buffet says this in an interview with Wall Street Journal, "Everything that has happened in my life … that I thought was a crushing event at the time, has turned out for the better. You learn that a temporary defeat is not a permanent one. In the end, it can be an opportunity."
Good words for all of us! Life has a habit of knocking us down, taking the wind out of our sails, giving us many rejections. I wonder today, whether I am speaking to some of you. Our former President, Mr. Abdul Kalam used to say, "When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience we did not know we had. And it is only when we are faced with failure do we realize that these resources were always there within us. We only need to find them and move on with our lives."
I wonder whether today, you are in that place where life has knocked you down and you need to look deep inside and pull up those reserves that you know you have. It could be that you are out of a job today. It could be that you are having a strained relationship with somebody, or seeing that in your family, or maybe there's a debilitating illness in you or your loved one. Maybe you have lost a loved one. Whatever it is, today you find yourself on the mat. Maybe you've been there a while. You've gone through the motions, you've kept up a façade, but deep down you know that you're down. And you have been for a while. If I'm speaking to some of you today, I wonder whether I can gently say to you, "Isn't it time to bounce back? Isn't it time to look deep inside and realize that you have the resources to come out of it?"
In our Holy Scriptures, we have a wonderful line: "God says to us – When you are in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end. Because I am God, your personal God." Maybe today you just need to whisper a prayer to Him and say, "I'm down, but I don't want to be out. Would You help me up?" My friends, maybe this is just a gently reminder to some of you who will hear or read this. It's time to get up off the mat, to remember that down is not out, that maybe today is the time to take charge of the present and embrace the future.
May I pray with you? Almighty God, if there are any who are down and out on the mat today who need help getting up, would You reach down and take their hand and help them up. Give them the grace, the strength, the reserves, the resources to be able to fight this adversity and to come back stronger than ever. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
• Marta Cooper, "Seeds of Resilience," http://qz.com/684804/you-are-not-born-with-a-fixed-amount-of-resilience-sheryl-sandbergs-powerful-commencement-speech/
• Vindu Goel & Randal C. Archibald, "Dave Goldberg, Silicon Valley Executive died of head trauma," http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/technology/dave-goldberg-cause-of-death.html?_r=0
• "Resilience," https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/resilience
• "Eight Luminaries who didn't get into their Dream College," http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/eight-luminaries-who-didnt-get-into-their-dream-college/articleshow/52286000.cms
• Abdul Kalam quote, http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/resilience.html
• Bible quotes, Isaiah 43:2, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isa+43%3A2&version=MSG
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