It’s hard to
be patient in a world used to immediate results. I understand that. However,
some of the greatest victories often come about through forced patience, or through the deep analysis of past mistakes.
In brief, successes
are usually achieved when we are willing to let go of the past and reinvent
ourselves.
Today, I
would like to give three examples of how endurance pays off. Disasters are
often followed by eventual victory. Two of the cases are from history. One is from
my own life experience.
Please note: If you’re a die-hard
history buff, I respect that, but I am not going to put in every single detail of what happened. I am going
only by what I learned from America:
Facts vs. Fiction--and a few other credible sources.
General Douglas MacArthur
***He was the American five-star general
who was over the Allied forces in the Pacific during World War II. When the
Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7th, 1941, he was
warned to evacuate all troops from the nearby Philippines. He refused to heed
the warning.
As a result,
the Japanese did invade that country.
Allied forces tried to flee at the last minute, leaving most of their supplies
behind. They didn’t make it. The result
was the catastrophic event called the Bataan Death March. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt was so embarrassed that he gave MacArthur a Congressional Medal of
Honor in order to quiet/confuse critics.
***That story changed during the Korean
War. During September, 1950, the general launched an unexpected amphibious
assault against the marshy, undefended Inchon peninsula. Seoul, the capitol,
was liberated two days later. The Battle of Inchon was considered a success,
nine years after the disaster in the Philippines.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
He was the 34th President of the United
States. However, he came to that office with decades of military
experience. During World War II, this five-star general was appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces
in Europe by American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
***Eisenhower was known to be a master
of logistics. Naturally, he wanted a flawless “dress rehearsal” of D-Day, the
amphibious attack on German-occupied French soil. This practice drill was
dubbed Operation
Tiger. It took place in April, 1944, two months before the assault
on the beaches of Normandy, France. The whole maneuver was such a fiasco that
the details weren’t declassified until the 1980’s.
The practice
run was held on a beach in England, friendly territory. Unfortunately, due to massive
miscommunication, everything that could go wrong did go awry. The Germans
attacked. Some of the participants were killed by friendly fire. The list goes
on.
***One can only imagine how stressed out
Eisenhower became when planning the actual
D-Day invasion for June 6, 1944. It’s said that he got
no sleep, drank 22 cups of coffee a day, and chain smoked. Yet, all his
planning worked out, including using the perfect craft for actually bringing
the soldiers up to the shallows of the beach: the Higgins boat.
More than
9,000 Allied troops lost their lives on the beaches of Normandy that day. The
Allies were fighting entrenched German forces as they came ashore. However, the
successful maneuver allowed more than 100,000 soldiers crucial access to
continental Europe. They could finally meet Hitler’s forces head on.
Without the
debacle of Operation Tiger, D-Day might never have been the success that it
was. Eisenhower was given about two months to iron out the kinks in his plan,
and he used them to his full advantage.
Me
I have
edited a few books. Without fail, the
finished product (the published book) takes longer to put together than
expected. That’s nothing against the authors; it’s just a fact. Text gets
messed up for unknown reasons. Research takes longer than expected. Personal
crises arise. Miscommunication is rampant.
I always wonder how I can help
a gifted author get published, but the book always comes together in the end. If
the result isn’t absolutely perfect, please show me a book that is without flaw.
My Conclusion
I have
participated in theater. This is a common saying: “The worse the dress
rehearsal, the better the performance.” I have seen many examples of this in my
life. I know the value of “waiting for it”. Sometimes, all we can do is wait and
hope, even when there seems to be no logical reason to believe in a better
tomorrow.
Please see
more about persistence against the odds in my book, Accept No Trash Talk: Overcoming the
Odds.
How has your
patience paid off?
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