Principles – “Braille” – Akhbar El Yom –20/2/2016

   Last time I discussed the topic of storms of despair that may ruin one’s life. Today, let’s proceed with our talk about ideas for fighting despair.

• Keep your perseverance and steadfastness:

   When storms of despair blow inside you, work more and insist on challenging that despair and don’t ever give up as maybe the minute you give up would be your minute of success. Thomas Edison said “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”You should know that hopes and dreams are not enough to achieve goals; you should work and be patient as drops of rain can smash the rock if keep falling. Helen Keller once said, “We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.”

• Have a goal and  work for it:

   Having a goal in which you believe is the greatest motive to success and challenge despair. “Louis Braille” and “Nelson Mandela are the best examples on challenging despair by having great goals.

“Louis Braille”:

   He was born in 1809. He lost one eye due to an accident in his childhood while he was helping his father. When he was 3, he lost the other one due to disinfection. Hence, he became totally blind. He learnt how to play music and loved to be one of the renowned music players at the National Institute of the Blind Youth at the age of eight.

   He excelled in music, math and science and geography. He learnt how to read by the known way at that time which is cutting metal in the shape of letters and pasting it on papers. This was the way that helped the visually- impaired to learn letters. Braille found it impractical as the letters were so big and heavy. He began to think of another way to learn and that was his life’s goal.

   In 1829, he managed to form letters of 6 dots. At that time he was 20 and was appointed as a teacher at the National Institute of the Blind Youth. He used that new method in teaching and then he began to present it to the world in 1839, but he met many obstacles and many refused accepting it as a method of teaching. Braille presented his first book which was a translation of the poems of Milton, the English blind poet, yet it didn’t achieve great success and was refused by the French Academy. But Braille kept teaching his students using this method and challenging all storms of despair, till he achieved success thanks to one of his students when she played the piano and amazed her audience at one of the greatest theaters in Paris. Amid the audience’s long applause, she declared the role of her blind teacher “Braille” who taught her using his method  saying that she didn’t deserve that appreciation, but rather the man who had taught her using his great discovery . And now he was sick and alone. Hence, newspapers began to support him and the French government acknowledged his method. When Braille was told about that he said, “I cried three times in my life. I cried when I lost my eyes. I cried the day I invented the new method. And I am crying today, on the day when this method has become the common way which means that my life doesn’t go in vain.”Storms of despair blew in Braille’s life, trying to ruin all his dreams of a better life and a better education for the visual-impaired, but his great goal helped him to go on till he achieved all his dreams.

Remember the poet’s words:

O Heart, don’t leave roses to thrones of despair

Pains of life should not grow your hope frail!

To be continued

Anba Ermiah,

General Bishop& President of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center