I came across this powerful true story and wanted to share it with you…
George Danzig was a grad student in mathematics at a time when jobs were very, very difficult to get in the United States.
His math professor, who was the head of the mathematics department, told his grad students that whoever got the best grade on the final had the opportunity to be hired as his research assistant for the next year.
That job was a plum job one that everybody wanted. George said that he studied so hard for that test that he was up until the middle of the night and overslept and was actually late to the test.
But he got there in time to take the test. He was handed the test and went to the back of the room. As he was answering the eight math questions he looked on the blackboard and there were two problems on the board. He copied them down and he began to work on them. However, he couldn’t solve them.
He began to think that somebody in this room is going to solve these problems. What’s wrong with me? He kept working and working on the problems. He couldn’t get them solved and by the end of the time that was allowed some of the students asked for additional time to work.
The professor said they could take the test home and bring it back by Friday. So George too asked for more time and he was told to just bring the test back by Friday, as well.
He went home and sat up night after night. Monday night, all day Tuesday, Tuesday night and into Wednesday and Wednesday night.
He just kept thinking somebody is going to get these solved. Why not me? Why not me? Finally by Thursday morning he had one of them solved. He kept working, working late into Thursday night and on Friday morning he solved the second one.
He took the test back and turned in by the eleven am deadline. He went home wondering what would happen. Sunday morning at seven am there was a knock at his door.
He jumped out of bed and it was his professor. His professor exclaimed ‘George, you’ve made mathematical history! I was thinking on the way over here, you were late to the test right?’
George replied ‘Well yeah, did I do something wrong?’
‘No’, the professor said, ‘it’s just that the eight questions were the test. However, I told everybody who was gathered that I’ve had such a great time teaching all of you and that if you want to have fun for the rest of your life, these two questions on the board are the two unsolved math questions that even Einstein himself went to his grave unable to solve. How did you do this, George?’
George realized later, that if he had heard ahead of time that no one had been able to solve those problems, his way of defining his relationship to those problems would have been so different that he would not have made himself available to the access to the solution that was within him. The same access that is within every one of us.
Now I don’t know what it is that you are facing. But I know this about you, that you are in the art of becoming for you are… to being everything you want to be, to give everything you want to give…to build your dream life.
Know that there is always a solution available for any problem you may be facing.
Your mission is to stay open to that possibility…