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 difficult to get in the United States.
His math professor, who was the head of the mathematics department, told the grad students that whoever got the best grade on the final exam could be hired as his research assistant for the next year.
That job was a plum job. Everybody wanted it. George said that he studied so hard for that test that he stayed up until the middle of the night, overslept, and was actually late to the test.
But he got there in time to take the test, was handed the test, and went to the back of the room. As he answered the eight math questions, he got through them fairly easily. Then he looked at the blackboard, and there were two problems on the board. He copied them down, and he began to work on those two problems, but he couldn’t solve them.
He began to think that somebody in this room was going to solve these problems. What’s wrong with me? He kept working and 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. He was told to bring the test back by Friday.
George went home and stayed up night after night. This was Monday, all day Tuesday, Tuesday night, Wednesday, and Wednesday night.
He just kept thinking somebody was going to solve these. Why not me? Finally, by Thursday morning, he had one of them solved. Then he kept working, working, working late into Thursday night, and on Friday morning, he solved the second one.
He took the test back and turned it in by eleven a.m., the deadline. He went home, wondering what would happen. Sunday morning at seven a.m., there was a knock, knock, knock at his door.
He jumps out of bed. It’s his professor. His professor says, “George, you’ve made mathematical history! I was thinking you were late to the test on the way over here, right?”
George said, “Well yeah, did I do something wrong?”
“No,” the professor said, “It’s just that the eight questions were the test. I told everybody who was gathered. I’ve had such a great time teaching all of you. If you want to have fun for the rest of your life, these two questions are the two unsolved math questions that even Einstein himself went to his grave unable to solve. How did you do this, George?”
George recounted 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 that problem would have been so different that he would not have made himself available to access to the solution that was within him. That same access is within every one of us.
Now, I don’t know what you are facing. But I know this about you: You are in the art of becoming, for you are a son, you are a daughter of the Infinite, of the Most High…to be everything you want to be, to give everything you want to give…to build your dream life.
Know that a solution is always available for any problem you may be facing.
Your job is to stay open to that possibility…
Believing in You!
Leah
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