Everybody Can Be Great. Because Anybody Can Serve.

There is a spirit of daring in man that makes a constant protest against ease, complacency, and sloth. “At heart all men and women are romantic and adventurous”. Whether it be the search for the Golden Fleece or the quest of the North Pole - there will always be heroic spirits ready for the proposal. But courage contains something more than daring - it contains the strength of action. The man who can do something, especially if it is against odds, awakens our quick admiration.

At times in life, opposition is better than admirers. Opposition watches each of ones step for criticism while friends sets their eyes upwards as for celebrating him. Majority of the great inventions emerged through drastic challenges and oppositions and not through trouble-free lives. So know how you treat the person you call your enemy, for sometimes he holds in his hands the key to your greatness in life. A settled mind goes for relaxation while the one filled of troubles seeks for an opening of escape and when found, gives rise to invention. Many veritable drugs of today emerged from the outburst of deadly epidemics.

Centuries ago, a pupil was unjustly expelled from school. After lamentation and unable to secure another entrance  spurred him to make a vow that the humiliation must set him above all his classmates and even the teachers of his school. Afterwards, he joined his uncle in blacksmith work. Fortunately, before he took his last breath in life he has made a wonderful record of being the first man to invent bicycle.

The drowsiest age and the most commonplace where people are often moved to unusual display of enthusiasm is by acts of human courage. Courage indeed is one of those redemptive features in humanity’s life which are constantly producing surprises, opening sudden vistas, and easing the burdens of mankind. There is no finer flower in this green earth than courage.” It is the ornament not only of those who are called to interpret “the terms of silence”. It is as often the “passion of patience” as the initiative of aggression’; it is; as often “the white flower of a blameless life” as the flash of the sword on the battlefield.

The elements that constitute courage are easily discernible. The first is the sheer love of adventure.

Mr. Edmund Hillary, born in 1919, is a New Zealand apiarist and mountaineer, educated in the University of Auckland. He took part in several Himalayan expeditions, including the New Zealand Gawhat Expedition in 1951, the British Chou Oyo Expedition in 1952, and the British Mount Everest Expedition in 1953. On the 1953 expedition, Hillary became the first to scale Mount Everest, 29,028 feet high, for which the guy was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. No wonder he ended his New Zealand transatlantic expedition which took place between 1956 and 1958 by writing a book titled “High Adventure.” He later became a Minister or so in his New Zealand.

High adventure indeed! As a matter of fact, Everest itself was named after Sir George Everest (1790-1988), the British surveyor general of India who in 1846 initiated the surveying of the Himalayas. The mountain originally bore its Tibetan name Chimolunma. But that jaw-breaking name quickly disappeared, yielding place to new. Courage!

Charles Blondin (real name Jean Francis Gravelet, 1824-97) was a French acrobat and tightrope walker, born in St. Omer. He toured America, and crossed the Niagara Falls several times on a tightrope, once blinded, once trundling a wheelbarrow, and once carrying a man on his back. Can you imagine a man crossing the mighty Niagara Falls on tightrope? Not once; not twice; not ten times? And doing that sometimes blindfolded, sometimes pushing a wheelbarrow? And once even carrying a man on his back! Niagara Falls has tempted many daredevils. It was daredevilry.

These were acts of heroism and courage. Don’t always pray or settle for easier life; for it does not make heroic figures. Great captains were made through rough sails. Always think of how to help others even when it requires risk-taking. Be a volunteer; most importantly, a United Nations volunteer. Interested? Join Us!

      -Meshiyach Yahzietere Okoh