by Steven J. Odette

Many years ago, I heard a very old man, a previous prisoner of war, share his heart-wrenching experience… there was nothing obviously unique or extraordinary about him, nothing apparently special or superhuman yet, as he spoke he explained that he had survived more than five long years… FIVE YEARS… in SOLITARY confinement as a prisoner of war.

I’m sure his ordeal is not unique. Many others may also have suffered a similar fate. War is a very sad human affair and many tragedies and horrifically sad stories are written on the pages of history in the wake of wars.

I remember him…

He stood there, unkempt gray hair, old, frail and tired looking, except for his eyes — which seemed to actually twinkle as he spoke, his lips slightly turned up in a curious almost smile, that made him look like a mischievous child, who was planning something a little devious.

As he started softly speaking that mid-summer’s day… he began his story with a simple statement…

“I was held in a prison camp, a prisoner of war… in solitary confinement… for five, very, very long years. Five long years of the most cruel, hateful, painful, physical, mental and emotional torture one can imagine. Yet… I stand before you today, a survivor.”

“Are you a survivor?” He asked. “How many of you feel that you could survive 5 years in solitary confinement under those, or indeed any, circumstances?”

No one raised a hand.

He then solemnly nodded his head and kindly stated – “I believe you underestimate the human spirit, your spirit. Seeing that not one here feels strength enough to endure such an inconceivable fate… may I ask you another question…? ”

“How many of you feel that you could survive just three years in solitary confinement? Your family will be waiting for you when you get out… the rest of your life will be yours to live… but, to experience these again, you must endure solitary confinement.. beatings, starvation, hatred, no warmth or love, no human kindness… for three years.”

Again.. no one, raised a hand. Not me, a young man at the time, not the old woman sitting next to me, not the businessman in his expensive suit behind me, no one… not one single person.

The room was quiet as the old man stood there before us, his weary body bent over, his warm smile and kind eyes gently washing over us as he patiently waited for our response.

He quietly continued…

“I’m not so special.”

“You, are special. You are all here because you’ve survived life to this point. You’ve all had adversity, challenge, pain, suffering, heartbreak, injury, and no doubt, worse… yet, you doubt your own strength and your own spirit?”

“You are stronger than you believe yourselves to be, my friends… truly. Let me ask you this question, because I know that here, among you, there is strength and faith, and will, and belief… even if you don’t recognize it in yourself. ”

He took a deep breadth and sipped the bottled water sitting on the small, round table next to him, then he began again…

“If you were imprisoned in solitary confinement, torn away from your family and friends, bereaved of all hope and caring, tortured and spit upon every day… in order for you to see freedom again, to hold your family, kiss your children, sleep in a warm bed again, even feel the warmth of a kind smile again… How many of you feel you could survive just two years in solitary confinement?”

Silence. Not one hand, of the more than 100 people, old, young, teenagers, healthy and frail… not one hand so much as moved to wipe a tear from their eyes.

The old man stood there… gazing over all of us, looking from one person to the next… then he spoke again…

“The test of human strength is not in how well you face each day of your unchallenged life… it is not in how well you face your contentment and comfort… To truly know yourself and to grow, you must… you have to… face adversity, persist through problems, survive whatever life throws at you. For in adversity you learn about yourself and discover how incredibly you are made. You discover strength that you never even knew you had, lying deep, deep inside of your being.”

He paused…

“You are stronger than you believe.”

I remember him gazing at the audience, at me. The silence in the room was total… and it seemed that even the babies were rapt by the old mans words, I don’t remember even one crying or caughing or making any sound for that matter.

Again, he took a deep sigh, then he continued…

“Now, we come to the heart of the matter, the true test of who you believe you really are… how strong you honestly understand yourself to be… I have only a few more questions to ask you today… then, if you’ll permit, I’d like to share some thoughts with you…”

And then he carefully asked this question;

“If you knew that you were going to have to suffer the pains and deprivations, the hate and punishment, the fear and torture, of solitary confinement… could you survive just one year of imprisonment?”

Now… tentatively, slowly,a few people raised their hands. He warmly and appreciatively smiled.

“Ah,” he commented, “I see you have begun to fight for your families and your future freedom now.”

“How many of you believe you could survive just six months in solitary confinement?”

More hands slowly, tentatively, went in the air…

“Good, good…” he said, “Good for you. You are finally willing to fight, and not give up.. you are telling me that you are not so easily stopped and that you finally believe, believe in yourself, enough to face the challenges and survive.”

Once again, he took a sip of water from his glass, then he asked…

“Raise your hand if you feel that you could, for your freedom, family, faith… your friends or children… your love of life…, survive just one month, under those horrid conditions, with rats, starvation, death all around you, rotting flesh, leaches and maggots, pain and suffering… in solitary confinement?… Just one month.”

More hands timidly went up in the audience… clearly, over half of the room now had their hands raised – silently agreeing that they believed they could survive just one month of solitary confinement if, at the end of it all, there was freedom and family again.

Finally, the old man walked out from behind his podium, and he stood in the center of the front of the room, with the microphone now held in is right hand, looking almost too heavy for him to hold, he commented;

“So, you do have faith in your own strength and ability to face cruelty head on… to face adversity and survive. You are not so different from me, and I am no hero or special human being. There is a strength and a survival instinct in you that is built-into your design… it’s there, whether you know it or acknowledge it, or you do not.”

“Yet, I see that some of you still don’t believe you could endure… that you doubt your own ability to make it through, to survive, such an ordeal for even a month. ”

“So, let me ask those of you who are still afraid to believe in your own capacity to survive, your own inner-strength to make it through whatever life puts before you, one final question…”

“How many of you sitting here today, feel that… for faith or family, for your children or your friends, for your beliefs or just for your rights as a human being to life itself, you could survive just one day of imprisonment in the most hurtful, hateful, painful, lonely, abandonded, and cold solitary confinement you can imagine?…

Just ONE, Single, Day?

If, in the end, you would be released, let out, set free, back to your family and friends, your loved ones and your life again.”

Hands began to raise in the silent audience. The old man, standing at the front of the room, slightly bent, his fragile, aged, body, alone before us all,  raised his hand too… and then, everyones hand, including my own, from the most elderly to the youngest child, went up into the still air.

He stood there with us, just sharing the moment, looking over the room of raised hands… and a tear came to his eyes.

He lowered his hand, he reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out a small, white cloth, which he used to gently wipe away his tears.  After which, he put the cloth back into his pocket, then he began to speak again…

“Very good, very good… see, we are not so much different, you and I… you think I’m special because I survived 5 years of solitary confinement… yet, I tell you as sure as I am standing her today, that I could no more survive 5 years of solitary confinement, than you. But I did, didn’t I? 

How can that be… that I, at the time weaker than many, if not all, of you here today, survived… even when many, many, others did not?

Allow me to share a secret with you…

… Something that, years after I was freed from my ordeal, became clearer to me and that I feel may help you in some small way also, if you ever face hard times.”

“Everyone here agrees that he or she can survive just one day in solitary confinement… so, do you feel that, seeing that you have now made it through just one day of solitary confinement… that you could make it through just one more, short, similar day?

Keep your hands up if you feel that, now you’ve survived one day… you could hold out for just one more solitary day… you’ll see your family, you’ll get your freedom, you’ll be able to go home, you’ll be set free… can you make it just – one – more – day?”

No one dropped their hands…

Again… he smiled and spoke… “See, you are strong… stronger than you realize and certainly as strong as I was those many years ago…”

“But, seeing that you’ve been able to survive yet another day… could you possibly, maybe, although unfair as it may seem, just for discussion… could you survive just-one-more-day?

Could you make it through just one more day… you’ll get your bread, your water, your faith… tell me… how about Just - ONE - MORE - DAY?”

All hands remained in the air… even, amazingly, the most infirm and elderly.

He asked us to put down our hands
and to listen carefully.

He recounted his ordeal in careful and painful detail… the tortures, the deprivations, the fear, the sorrow, even the death all around him… And… then he made a most revealing and awakening observation about his trials that sent chills down my spine even then, as a much younger man, still in my prime, sitting in the audience that day.

He crouched low to the microphone, now placed back in the podium stand, which he again stood behind, leaned on his elbows and said this…

“I was weak… I was a frail human being with no spirit, little belief in myself, little understanding of my true strength, just as many of you here today. I too, doubted my ability to survive torture and abuse for years… I cried and prayed and feared… but somewhere, deep, deep, down inside of myself I pulled out a small, tiny, hidden little truth… a truth that I could believe, a fact that I had no doubts about…

… I knew, deep down inside that I could survive… Just-One-Day. In fact, I already had survived one day.. and onother… All I needed to do was survive… Just One More Day. Just One More Day. Just One More Day.”

“You see,” he said… “it would have been impossible for me, just like you, to have survived five years in prison, let alone in solitary confinement.. I was weaker in heart, faith, stature, and self esteem than many, if not all of you here today…”

“I would have died there had I known my imprisonment was going to last five years, four years, three years, one year,or even, months… I was a weak man, and still believe myself to be a weaker man than most, though others believe me different. Why do others, like you, believe that I am so strong or special?

Why are you in awe of me
for what I survived…?”

“For you, yourselves… have just shown that you are just as strong as I was.

Some of you, much, much stronger in fact.”

“How, you might ask?”

“Because you too… no matter what happens around you, no matter what events befall you, no matter the trials or tribulations of your days, no matter even imprisonment or solitary confinement… you too, pledged that you could survive for Just One More Day.”

“And, that is all that I did, those many years ago. I survived, just one more day.”

“That is what we must all do sometimes in our lives…

Sometimes… we just need to forget yesterday, ignore what tomorrow might bring… lift our spirits up, put our hopes and faith in our own abilities and make it through… Just One More Day.”

“No one ever truly knows how long trials or tribulations or unforeseen occurances will last… our job, is to focus on the now… on this day… on making every minute we have the best it can possibly be, and sometimes, when things aren’t going like we may want them to, to concentrate on getting through, just one more day.”

“One day at a time.”

“You are a beautiful creation… and  you can survive much adversity if you just believe in yourself and your ability to survive THIS MOMENT and make it the best you possibly can.”

“I believe you are stronger than you believe yourself to be… you have already survived adversity, you’ve already come through many days of trials… there will likely be more to come, who is to say… but all you need to do, is stay focused on getting through this one… just this challenge or problem… just this day… doing the best you can to make the best of this moment, right now.”

“And if you keep waking up to new days, again, and again, and again… and you keep making the best out of each one, moving forward, ever forward and never back… you, my friend, will be just fine.”

“I believe in you…
and, you should believe in yourself too.”

And then the old man took one final drink of water from the glass on the round table next to the podium… looked at us one more time, and simply said “thank you for letting me share my story and my thoughts with you.. now go out and live your life to the fullest, and if you have challenges, problems, adversity, or depression, failure or pain… remember, you don’t need to endure it forever… all you need to do, is endure it… for One-More-Day.”

Live your life to the fullest… one day at a time. Make each day the best it can be… and you will be surprised just how fast the bad times slip on by.

Thank you….”

What do you think about this story?

How do you feel about your problems and challenges, that sometimes, no doubt, seem endless and forever, when you consider what the old man shared that day?

Post a note or comment below and give your feedback, I’d love to hear what you your comments…

Also, here are some of my own thoughts on living One-Day-At-A-Time…

Live in the “Now”…

“Live In the NOW” — “Now” is the most important time you will ever have in your life. If you live each and every NOW to it’s best and fullest, your string of NOW’s will all add up to a beautiful life and you will learn to appreciate living from a whole new perspective.

Yesterday…

Yesterday is gone… there isn’t anything you can do about it, so if it wasn’t the best day of your life, then learn what you can from your experience and move on. There is only “Now” yesterday is yesterday and is gone. Let it go.

Tomorrow…

You can’t guarantee the outcomes or perfectly plan all of your end results for tomorrow or for any part of your future – all you can do is line things up as imperfectly as we humans are capable of doing, so do yourself a favor, don’t worry too much about tomorrow, just do your best to prepare, then brace yourself.

When tomorrow becomes “Now” do your best with it… and live it to the fullest. You never know when your “Now’s” will be done and your tomorrows will stop coming as well.

When it comes to the past or the future, the truth is you are powerless beyond what you can visualize, imperfectly prepare for, inaccurately remember, meditate upon, think about or even assume, really… and those things hold no guarantee or absolute result because in the big scheme of things, you are incapable of perfectly doing anything, especially with any degree of consistency.

Now, I know that there are some Quantum Theorists out there who will argue with me on that point, with good reason — according to what you believe and understand about how the universe is wired.

I’m inclined to agree with much of what you believe, but the fact is, for me anyway, I’m no more able to change my past or truly manipulate my future than an oak seed laying deep in the earth can decide to grow into a concrete building… well, in my own experience so far in my life anyway.

There are some natural laws, as far as our limited human experience currently understands them, that we can’t yet change.

The NOW…

“What you CAN affect, control, change, and experience,… is right now, this minute, this second, this milli-micro moment in time.”

Your thoughts, your actions, your beliefs, your feelings… are all in your control, right now.

Now is all that matters.

So, I’m glad you are sharing it with me and reading this article… I am honored.

Post a comment below.. until next time!

Warmest Regards,

Steve Odette is the creator of MagneticMastermind.com, a coaching community for online entrepreneurs. He is also an in-demand copywriter, marketing consultant, and business coach. He has written several courses on real estate investing, internet marketing, and on being a successful entrepreneur. You can find Steve’s latest projects at www.SteveOdette.com.