The Courage to Go on Despite the Odds

Imagine that you grew up in the ghettos around Los Angeles as a tough guy known to relish a fight. You've had many brushes with the law, and most people you know expect you to die early or in jail. Then imagine you decide you don't want to live up to those expectations; you want to live a better life. So you join the Los Angeles police force and run an anti-gang unit. You think you've got it beat. Then, while you're out taking a run, you are hit by a car and severely injured. You lose a portion of your left leg, and your hopes for the future.

You can let pain and disability defeat you before the injury does, or you can fight. You can keep yourself psychologically strong enough to come out physically scarred but mentally intact and able to put life in perspective. Now you can say to yourself, no matter what obstacles are thrown in your path, "I can't have a bad day. I know what a bad day is, and this isn't one of them."

Now, imagine that you're 22 and in an abusive marriage. You find the courage to leave, only to discover that your ex has left you destitute. Then, you're offered a job as a pharmaceutical sales representative. You don't think you can handle the job. But you take a leap of faith—and the job. Today, you look on that time as a blessing in disguise, realizing that one of the most important aspects of adversity is that it makes you feel so uncomfortable that you have no choice but to reexamine what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Sergeant John Brown (back at his job and believed to be the first officer in the United States to return to full duty as a police officer with a prosthesis) and Jo Jerman (now one of the highest-ranking vice presidents at a large pharmaceutical company) are the real people who lived the nightmare stories previously discussed. The success they found after experiencing setbacks is not necessarily measured by fame or money, but rather by a shift in attitude and a new way of dealing with the kinds of adversity we all face every day. Dealing with adversity helped give clarity to their lives, helped them appreciate what they have now, and changed the quality of their lives.

I have lived through countless storms at sea. Winds over 100 miles an hour, swells reaching 50 feet. And when I thought I could not last another minute, the winds dropped off, the seas flattened, the blue sky appeared, and my quest was reached.

—Robert D. Ballard,
undersea explorer