I’ve fallen short on my blogging duties the past few days.  I haven’t been feeling well, so I’ve barely even had the energy to keep up with the daily grind.  I’m also in the middle of some serious soul searching…that I’m not quite ready to discuss on here, at least not at length.

Anyway, we were watching Saving Mr. Banks last night and there were some pretty touching (inspiring) parts.  In the spirit of full disclosure, I slept through the first of it, even though I’ve been wanting to see it for a while.

There was a scene that really hit home and I could almost see it unfolding before it even happened.  A little history for those that haven’t seen the film, P.L. Travers is the author of the Mary Poppins books and Walt Disney spends most of the film trying to convince her to give him the rights, so he can make a Mary Poppins film.  Ralph is Mrs. Travers’ driver while she’s in the U.S. (and Disney is trying to convince her to give him the rights).  In one of the very sentimental moments in the film, Ralph opens up to Mrs. Travers about his daughter Jane who is bound to a wheelchair.

Toward the end of the film, Mrs. Travers gives Ralph a piece of paper with a list of names and the dialogue that followed kinda hit me like a ton of bricks:

As Ralph began to rattle off the list, “Albert Einstein, Van Gogh, Roosevelt, Frida Kahlo…” I knew exactly where it was going.  Sure, all of these people were amazingly successful, but they did all also have potentially debilitating challenges to overcome…and they did…with flying colors.

I knew, too, that they were going to put Walt Disney out there…they kinda had to.  It’s a pretty well known fact that Walt Disney exhibited symptoms of ADHD.  Also, in Ralph’s eyes (and many other people’s eyes), Disney was a god.  To see all that Disney accomplished and to know that he had his own set of challenges to overcome?  Well, that’s pretty powerful.

It was even more powerful to me because of the timing of things in my life and the way that the scene seemed to speak to me directly.

Face your own obstacles head on.  Live your dreams in spite of those obstacles…and sometimes because of them.  Never stop believing in the life you know you were meant to live.  You were given certain passions for a reason.  Those obstacles…and those passions…were all give to you because you are meant to do something with them.  Figure out what that thing is and do whatever it takes to make it happen.

If my, “Deficiencies in concentration and hyperactive behavior,” make me similar to Walt Disney (and let’s be honest, Einstein), then I feel pretty good about my chances in this life.