Success is about mastering the difficulties. All those who have succeeded in any way have done so by overcoming the odds. Where there are no setbacks to eliminate. Everyone comes to an end and that cannot be called success.
There was a time when setting up a telegraph line from New York to Boston presented many difficulties. Later, this was easily accomplished, but laying the transatlantic cable was a great feat because of the difficulties that had to be overcome.
Later, the laying of underwater cables became a routine, but the radio across the ocean presented problems that for some time were insurmountable. Then, those same problems were also solved.
There are no problems that cannot be overcome by calm and persistent spiritual treatment and judicious and appropriate activity.
If you have an injury or stumbling block that appears to oppose success, do not accept it as such, take advantage of it or exploit it, use it as an instrument of your success.
The British novelist H. G. Wells had to give up an underpaid and unattractive position because of poor health, which forced him to stay at home and spend his time writing books that made him a world-renowned author. Edison became stone-deaf and decided that this would make him better able to concentrate on his inventions. Theodore Roosevelt was a sickly child who was advised to live in seclusion, taking care of himself. He was short-sighted and nervous. Instead of accepting these recommendations, he worked hard to develop his body, and as is known he became a great hunter and strong man (President of the United States). Gilbert wrote his famous zarzuela pinaforaá, in bed between agony rales.
The owner of a famous London fashion house was the wife of a poor salesman who was attacked by tuberculosis. She was unaware of business and unprepared when faced with the problem of supporting her husband and two children. She had no capital, only good taste in clothes and faith in prayer. Today she is a rich and famous woman who says: ¨. I thought I would like to be able to sell the kind of clothes that I had never been able to buy to myself ¨.
Many say I wish I could move on more quickly. I want to gain more understanding, and they usually ask for a list of books to read or some advanced course to take.
That attitude is wrong, it implies that spiritual advancement concerns spiritual activity, or that it is mere acquisition of knowledge.
This is true as far as mathematics is concerned, or physics, or chemistry, for example. But not so in metaphysics. Spiritual growth comes through the practice of what we already know. Instead of reading one more book, reread your favorite book and apply its teachings more carefully than before.
The fact of healing a cut on a finger, or solving a business problem, is enough for you to learn infinitely more than the intellectual study of an entire library can teach you.
What you must understand is that the world we live in is a mental concept and not an objective reality. Every demonstration that you make makes it easier for you to understand this truth, while intellectual study does not give you anything in that sense.
Metaphysics, like music, is as much a science as it is an art. In Metaphysics it is absolutely exact to affirm that one learns by doing.
Whatever your stumbling block is, make it work. It always seems that the problem itself is the most difficult of all, but spiritual treatment and courageous determination can overcome everything.