It's About Belief by lenire for CVN
[Editor's note: If anyone would like to write a respoonse. We will move this to the Editorial Page. Send any responses to CVN .]
here is the microtheme, but first the quote:
"Without belief, we should be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I know now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit. So I believed" (113-14).
It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life Lance Armstrong, With Sally Jenkins September 2001
Lance Armstrong, in his book, It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life deals with many different issues, one of the more important themes in his book is believing in something. He feels that without a belief we would feel every day as if the weight of the world were trying to crush us and that we were helpless. Mr. Armstrong also said he felt that without belief, one would fall victim to dispiritedness and disappointment. These things can happen, and I do agree they can tear you up, but this need not be a belief in a higher power. This could simply be a faith in the human spirit to over come things like sickness. The love of family members and friends can be a constant reminder of a faith. Simply put, faith manages. With the constant feeling that you can become better, you will achieve this, etc. People all over the world have accomplished great acts.
Never in my life have I met an impossible odd that I could not over come. I simply held together, I knew there were times when I could have turned back and taken the easier way, and many other times when I tried to take the easier way. But I would always, because of the support of friends or family, go back and try to achieve whatever goal I wanted to attain. With this mentality, your goal becomes a desire, a hunger really. And nothing but success will quench that thirst. And even if you do fail, it is still may sate your hunger because you stuck with it till the end and did not walk away.
This is what I believe Lance Armstrong is trying to say in the 2nd excerpt. Simply put, find faith in the fact that you will achieve what you want, regardless of how long it takes or what obstacles are in your way. No mountain is so tall that it is un-climbable. That is, as long as you keep the faith, so to speak, you can achieve it. This is coming from the man who recovered from cancer and went on to win the Tour de France five times, proof that if you desire it, really hunger for it, you can have it. It can happen if you fight your way to the summit of that mountain and do not accept any limitations. Keep in mind that does not in anyway mean that you will succeed, only that you have the potential to succeed.