Untapped Power

There are, among us, exceptional individuals who push themselves to the extremes. Many of them even have options other than face up a gruelling and often seemingly impossible challenge. But they doggedly pursue what they set out to accomplish, and in the process raise themselves to a level of power where nothing seems formidable or insurmountable anymore. We see them as winners and heroes.

In everyday life, we all have experienced starting on a task, feeling quite excited. But there are also tasks that we feel rather drab about. But what if it’s a really important task that has to be done? Some use a technique called “warming up,” to prime their enthusiasm and energy.

Most of the time, warming up works. But why does it work? Where does the pep, which was not there at the start, come from?

There seems to be a higher level of power within us, a reservoir of energy that never gets depleted. Like fire that never wanes. The only thing with it perhaps is that most of the time it remains in slumber, because we don’t call it to work often enough.

It is said that we use only a part of our total potentials. We restrain ourselves from going outside of our comfort zones. Our drive is hampered by our own imagined limitations. To a large extent, we utilize only a little of our innate resources.

Many people cow out from an important endeavor at the first sign of a problem. Others keep on to some extent, but then soon give up feeling they’ve pushed themselves enough and are just too tired to go on. Yet still others, especially the ones who don’t have other choices but stick to the task at hand, persevere. Inexplicably, they remain fresh, at times even getting more energized, at what they do.

Past a certain level of fatigue a new level of energy seems to open. We discover a source of ability and power that we never thought we had – a source of strength that is ordinarily not tapped, because we do not push ourselves hard enough beyond the thin wall of fatigue.

Our body is predisposed to rest. It’s no wonder why we get tired after only a few hours of working. But the mind can overcome physical fatigue, if it is set accordingly.

The will is our key into deeper levels of energy. And just like the ordinary key, we have to use it for it to work. But to have the will is not at all easy. Just as it takes a strong resolve and commitment to break free from the bondage of vices and the addiction to comforts, it requires a firm resolve to free ourselves from the normal limitations of the body.

The case of the ordinary housewife is something to ponder on. She keeps the family going by doing all the budgeting, housekeeping, marketing, cooking, keeping the family’s health in check, representing the family in community affairs etc. She becomes cross every once in a while, yes, but that’s understandable considering the juggling act she performs to keep the home in proper balance.

As mother and wife, she runs the household all by herself and gets really tired doing everything. But while she may complain, she keeps on. And there’s no good housewife that regrets doing what she does for her family.

Human endurance has limits, of course. As they say, trees cannot grow up into the sky. But the fact remains that our body, when gradually pushed to the extreme, is able to adapt and assume a new range of power.

For instance, a weight lifter is able to lift weights many times his own by constant training. Even if slight strains may be experienced at the start, the body’s rate of self-repair also accelerates. Stories abound of people trapped in “hopeless” situations, like in collapsed mine pits and buildings, but survived out of sheer will to live.

We’ve been told that there is inside each one of us a hidden well of available resources, ready for use if we try to reach deeply enough. We may have limits, but it’s not the ones we’re seeing in the near horizon. We normally energize ourselves way below our maximum and, thus, fall short of accomplishing as much in life as we possibly could.

Consider what one product advertisement says: “What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.” And that product may not even be necessary to make it so.