Page 44 - ThinkandGrowRichJourney2020

44 THINK AND GROW RICH
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DESIRE OUTWITS MOTHER NATURE
304 As a fitting climax to this chapter, I wish to introduce one of the most unusual
305 persons I have ever known. I first saw him twenty-four years ago, a few minutes
306 after he was born. He came into the world without any physical sign of ears, and
307 the doctor admitted, when pressed for an opinion, that the child might be deaf,
308 and mute for life.
309 I challenged the doctor's opinion. I had the right to do so, I was the child's
310 father. I, too, reached a decision, and rendered an opinion, but I expressed the
311 opinion silently, in the secrecy of my own heart. I decided that my son would
312 hear and speak. Nature could send me a child without ears, but Nature could not
313 induce me to accept the reality of the affliction.
314 In my own mind I knew that my son would hear and speak. How? I was sure
315 there must be a way, and I knew I would find it. I thought of the words of the
316 immortal Emerson, "The whole course of things goes to teach us faith. We need
317 only obey. There is guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening, we shall hear
318 the right word."
319 The right word? DESIRE! More than anything else, I DESIRED that my son
320 should not be a deaf mute. From that desire I never receded, not for a second.
321 Many years previously, I had written, "Our only limitations are those we set up in
322 our own minds." For the first time, I wondered if that statement were true. Lying
323 on the bed in front of me was a newly born child, without the natural equipment
324 of hearing. Even though he might hear and speak, he was obviously disfigured
325 for life. Surely, this was a limitation which that child had not set up in his own
326 mind.
327 What could I do about it? Somehow I would find a way to transplant into that
328 child's mind my own BURNING DESIRE for ways and means of conveying
329 sound to his brain without the aid of ears. As soon as the child was old enough