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The Bounteous Source of Strength

Every human being is innately endowed with the capacity to face adversity. It is our duty to employ our resources for encountering adverse conditions and bring our remarkable powers into action. Man's latent inner powers comprise a bounteous source whose treasures are never exhausted. In fact the more they are put to use the more profuse their flow becomes. Despair and despondency and the inability to resist hardship are not due to any inborn lack of capacity. Rather it is the chain of despair and faint heartedness which shackles the hands of some people and neutralises their power of resistance to problems.

This kind of people fall victim to a kind of paralysing confusion and perplexity when faced with any trivial difficulty. Their spirit and morale can even be totally shattered in a single encounter with some sudden tragedy which makes them lose their poise and equilibrium. It is harder to remedy this weakness of character than any other moral inadequacy.

Those who rely on the constancy of their efforts are closer to success and advancement than those who depend on their personal talents and abilities. No matter how much intelligence perspicacity and refined positive effort they will not reach fruition.

The world's eminent thinkers didn't come from a particular social class. Rather most of them grew up in difficult conditions and began their climb in the midst of hardships. It was the pressure of hardship and deprivation that gave the strength to survive in the face of various kinds of enervating problems to those who have developed distinguished and sublime personalities whose fame has spread far and wide and who have even brought glory and honour to their societies. It was this factor which gave them toughness and strength and enabled them to climb the ladder of progress with a decisive will.

There is a story that once a Chinese student who had failed to make any progress in his studies took all his books and threw them away out of despair. At that moment he saw a poor woman filing away a piece of iron with untiring tenacity in order to make a needle out of it. This scene produced a great upheaval in his spirit and moved him strongly. It taught him an important lesson: he decided to go back to his class and continue his studies at all cost. He put this resolution into effect and with the fortitude that he developed within himself he came to rank amongst the famous scholars of his age and became one of the foremost scientists of his era.

Adapted from: "Ethics and Spiritual Growth" by: "Sayyid Mujtaba Musawi Lari"

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