“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
Albert Camus, via Things No One Else Can Teach Us (Page 5)
Beyond the Quote (65/365)
Our world can be cold, harsh, and barren—there’s no doubt about that. Yet, even in the depth of winter when things feel like they’re at their worst there’s still one place that the outside world can’t touch—our inside world. The people around us might be despicable, we might be in an incredibly harsh and barren situation, and we might even be without a clear way out, but unless we let it, our inner world is ours only for the making. This is not to say that the outside world won’t have an influence over our inside world—because it certainly can—but the absolute most it can have is an influence. It has no direct access or authoritative power over our inner world. And what a profound revelation that is.
This means, of course, as Camus mentions above, that within you there lays an invincible summer—a summer that’s too powerful to be defeated or overcome by anything external. Many of us are influenced by the outside world too much. When it rains outside, we rain inside. When it storms, we magnify the storm inside. When it’s cold and miserable, we’re cold and miserable. Sometimes, even when it’s sunny and seventy, we’re still cold, raining, and storming inside from days past! We have to learn to better control the weather of our inside world so that it stands independent of what’s happening outside. Because that invincible summer is readily available and is just laying there waiting to be tapped into and unleashed! Not convinced? Let’s take a look at some examples.
Viktor Frankl, a Holocast survivor who had to endure unimaginably hellish Nazi concentration camp conditions and treatment, made it out alive and convinced that even in the most challenging of environments, we have the power to choose our own path based on how we react—this is AFTER he left the concentration camps and learned about the deaths of his mother, father, brother, and wife to the Nazis. He thought that during extreme physical circumstances, a person could escape through his or her spiritual self as a means to survive seemingly unbearable conditions and that the spiritual self could not be affected by external forces. He said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Another remarkable example of this incredible ability to access the invincible summer is Nelson Mandela. The following account was shared by Robin Sharma on is Instagram account. “My life changed the day I stood in Nelson Mandela’s prison cell on Robben Island. It was a cold day of a South African Winter. My guide—a former ANC political prisoner—walked me down the brutally sparse corridors. Past the office where letters would be censored and by the eating are where those incarcerated would be give food unfit for dogs [yet another form of abuse; designed to break a human sprit]. I was shown the area where Madiba would shower—while the young guards would mock this naked elder. And then… I was led to Nelson Mandela’s cell. 18 years on Robben Island. Away from his family. And the world. I read that his greatest regret was not being permitted to leave the prison to attend the funeral of his oldest son, who had been killed in a car accident. 18 years in a tiny cell. No bed. Just a tattered blanket. On a freezing floor.” Talk about the depth of winter.
Sharma continues, “…And yet, on release—facing a nation that I’ve grown to love that was at the brink of civil war—he spoke of unity. And peace. And forgiveness. And in every photo that I’ve seen of this great leader since his release, I’ve noted one trait: he’s smiling.” Now, talk about an invincible summer. That same invincible summer that Frankl and Mandela accessed is there for all of us to access too—we just have to find our way through the inner workings of our inner world. Some might discover their invincible summer quicker and/or easier than others—some might have a much harder time. Just know that it’s there. Because if you know that you can make things worse (because you can always make things worse), simply by willing a change in your inner world, then you must realize that you can make it better. Our perception of what’s external is malleable—and WE are the creators of our life.
Don't Let the Motivation Stop There...!
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