by Napoleon Hill
Available in 122 free installments
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9. The seven virtues are: prudence, fortitude, temperance, justice, faith, hope, and charity. Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude indicates how you can relate and assimilate these qualities into your own life.
10. One good idea followed by action can change failure into success.
YOU'VE GOT A PROBLEM? THAT'S GOOD!
FOR IT'S
THE SEEDS OF
GREATER BENEFITS
FOR THOSE WHO HAVE PMA
CHAPTER 7 Learn to See
When he was born, George W. Campbell was blind. "Bilateral congenital cataracts," the doctor called it.
George's father looked at the doctor, not wanting to believe. "Isn't there anything you can do? Wouldn't an operation help?"
"No," said the doctor. "As of now, we know of no way to treat this condition."
George Campbell couldn't see, but the love and faith of his parents made his life rich. As a very young boy, he did not know that he was missing anything.
And then, when George was six years old, something happened which he wasn't able to understand. One afternoon he was playing with another youngster. The other boy, forgetting that George was blind, tossed a ball to him. "Look out! It'll hit you!"
The ball did hit George ? and nothing in his life was quite the same after that. George was not hurt, but he was greatly puzzled. Later he asked his mother: "How could Bill know what's going to happen to me before I know it?"
His mother sighed, for now the moment she dreaded had arrived. Now it was necessary for her to tell her son for the first time: "You are blind." And here is how she did it:
"Sit down, George," she said softly as she reached over and took one of his hands. "I may not be able to describe it to you, and you may not be able to understand, but let me try to explain it this
way." And sympathetically she took one of his little hands in hers and started counting the fingers.
"One ? two ? three ? four ? five. These fingers are similar to what is known as the five senses." She touched each finger between her thumb and index finger in sequence as she continued the explanation.
"This little finger for hearing; this little finger for touch; this little finger for smell; this one for taste," and then she hesitated before continuing: "this little finger for sight. And each of the five senses, like each of the five fingers, sends messages to your brain."
Then she closed the little finger which she had named "sight" and tied it so that it would stay next to the palm of George's hand.
"George, you are different from other boys," she explained, "because you have the use of only four senses, like four fingers: one, hearing ? two, touch ? three, smell ? and four, taste. But you don't have the use of your sense of sight. Now I want to show you something. Stand up," she said gently.
George stood up. His mother picked up his ball. "Now hold out your hand as if you were going to catch this," she said.
George held out his hands, and in a moment he felt the hard ball hit his fingers. He closed them tightly around it and caught it.
"Fine. Fine," said his mother. "I never want you to forget what you have just done. You can catch a ball with four fingers instead of five, George. You can also catch and hold a full and happy life with four senses instead of five ? if you get in there and keep trying." Now George's mother had used a metaphor, and such a
simple figure of speech is one of the quickest and most effective methods of communicating ideas between persons.
George never forgot the symbol of "four fingers instead of five." It meant to him the symbol of hope. And whenever he became discouraged because of his handicap, he used the symbol as a self-motivator. It became a form of self-suggestion to him. For he would repeat "four fingers instead of five" frequently. At times of need it would flash from his subconscious to his conscious mind.
And he found that his mother was right. He was able to catch a full life, and hold it with the use of the four senses which he did have.
But George Campbell's story doesn't end here.
In the middle of his junior year at high school the boy became ill, and it was necessary for him to go to the hospital. While George was convalescing, his father brought him information from which he learned that science had developed a cure for congenital cataracts. Of course, there was a chance of failure but ? the chances for success far outweighed those for failure.
George wanted so much to see that he was willing to risk failure in order to see.
