Tuesday, September 2, 2014

2014-36 - How to change the world...

The ninth week of SEAL training is referred to as Hell Week.

It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing-cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure from the instructors to quit. As the sun began to set that evening, my training class was ordered into the mud. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit - just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold.

Looking around the mud flat, it was apparent that some students were about to give up. And then, one voice began to echo through the night - one voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm. One voice became two, and two became three, and before long everyone in the class was singing. The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing - but the singing persisted. And somehow, the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.

If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person can change the world by giving people hope.

So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you're up to your neck in mud.

~ Admiral William H McRaven



Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

~ Desmond Tutu

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