All of us have had the experience of being challenged to do something we know we would fail at. How do you maintain hope in such cases? To answer that essential life question, imagine that you are Eric Moussambari from Equatorial Guinea. The year is 2000 and you are 22 years old.
You have been selected to take part in the 100m freestyle swimming event at the Sydney Olympics. You have never raced before, but your country was given a “free pass” to encourage greater participation from developing countries. In fact, you only learned to swim eight months before. Your country has no Olympic swimming pools, so you train in a lake and a hotel swimming pool just 12m in length. You are trained by fishermen who try to show you how fish move through water.
You have never heard of Sydney or even Australia. Your travel to the Olympics will be exhausting taking three days. When you see the 50m pool, you are scared. Then you notice the swimming gear of the others, which you don’t have.
But you persevere because you are representing those in your country. The South African coach helps you with the swim trunks and goggles you will need. You study the U.S. swimmers for technique.
Now you are ready to begin the race. Your competitors are from Nigeria and Tajikistan. When the starting gun goes off, you quickly discover that you are the only one swimming. Your competitors have been disqualified because of a false start.
The first half of the race goes well, but as you make the turn, you realize that you have little energy left. Your legs have stiffened up, and it seems as if you are not getting closer to the finish line, but you can hear the crowd cheering “Go. Go. Go.”
You finish the race with the slowest time ever in the Olympics. Rather than being shamed, you receive an incredible ovation from those in the arena. The competitors that are poolside congratulate you. Later you find your accomplishment celebrated in news and sports channels. No one is laughing at you. They are impressed by your courage.
Eric the Eel, as he became known, is a lesson for all of those of us facing impossible challenges. Hope is a motivator, not for a victory, but for what we can learn about ourselves in facing difficult challenges. We need to replace hope for victory with hope for personal advancement. Eric won by confronting a challenge and by so doing, his hope became an inspiration for others.
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“It was then that I started to hear the crowd screaming and shouting, encouraging me to Go. Go. Go. —It gave me the strength to finish, and when I touched the wall, I said to myself, “Oh I’ve done it.” –Eric Moussambari