Not today. These words of determination were spoken by 13-year-old Austin Appelbee, who swam 4 km (2.5 miles) to shore in the west Australian ocean to get help for his family who had been pulled out to sea.
I can’t begin to imagine how terrifying that must have been for him. And life changing. I suspect there will be few things, if any, in the rest of his life that will compare to the magnitude of what he endured. He decided – not today. I’m not going to fail today. I’m going home today. And he did. His actions ultimately saved the life of his mum and 2 younger siblings who were stranded.
I love stories like this and always have. Because no matter how difficult a time I’m having, there is always someone somewhere who is battling something even more difficult. It helps me to put things in perspective. Is a flat tire, or broken freezer or no hydro because of a storm …or, or, or…is it really that bad compared to literally swimming for your life in the cold, choppy waves of the ocean? I’m glad to have another real-life story about determination and overcoming obstacles and hardships for when self-pity rears its ugly head and threatens to steal my joy.
When my husband died and I had a newborn baby, a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old, I was overwhelmed in every conceivable way. And then the 2-year-old fell at the park and broke his collar bone when the baby was 2 months old. Life was varying degrees of difficult for many years. When I felt sorry for myself, things invariably became worse. In order to help myself with staying positive when filled with self-pity, I enjoyed movies that were “based on a true story”. About how people had seemingly insurmountable odds, and they succeeded anyway. It gave me hope that if someone else could succeed, so could I. And it gave me ideas on how to do that. Mindset, I learned, was huge. I would love to have had Austin Appelbee’s story in those early years as a young widow. Such an inspiring story.
I am curious to see what becomes of this courageous, determined 13-year-old boy. How will this experience affect him and the decisions he makes, as he ages? He clearly is a very mentally tough person already. Being able to look back on successfully getting help and saving his family must be a huge motivator the next time he needs to choose between pressing on and giving in.
I’m sure most people have successes they can look back on. If we have been successful before, we can be successful again, right? In an extreme case like Austin’s, I am aware that he had a choice to make. The odds were stacked against him, but he chose, he decided, he determined that he was going to be successful. He was going to reach the shore and find help for his family.
We always have a choice. What will we choose when the chips are down? Someone once said, “wisdom is doing now what you will be happy with later on”. In my experience, later on always comes. We don’t know when later on will come, or what that will look like.
Whatever is happening in our lives now, we can choose how to respond. How will that choice look a month from now? Six months from now? A year from now? Will we be happy with that result? If not, maybe we can borrow a page from Austin Appelbee’s story and say “not today”. No failing today. Today I succeed. I have succeeded before and I will succeed again. Including today.
