Some time ago, I attended a wonderful motivational seminar given by some of the nation’s best motivational speakers. One of the speakers was Zig Ziglar.

Over the years I grew to appreciate what he taught on overcoming the impossible in life. One of his quotes went as follows, “You are free to choose, but the choices you make today will determine what you will have, be, and do in the tomorrow of your life.”

Last week I sat under my backyard gazebo listening to the bees and hummingbirds swirl around the wonderful smelling wisteria. Then the noise of a gigantic bumblebee shattered the sound barrier as it lumbered through the flowers. I smiled as I remembered reading of the well-known fact that the bumblebee can’t fly. Scientific evidence about it is overwhelming — the bumblebee can’t fly. His body is too heavy and his wings are too light. Aerodynamically it is impossible for the bumblebee to fly, but the bumblebee doesn’t read — he just goes on flying.

I have always been fascinated with stories of people who have been told that they can’t do certain things. They take the lemons of life and turn them into lemonade. It is said that the difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination to succeed.

Thomas Edison was once asked how it felt to fail 10,000 times as he attempted to find a solution to the light bulb. He replied, I did not fail 10,000 times; I found 10,000 ways that didn’t work.

A man I related to very well was at the time a future President of the United States. I struggled with asthma as a young boy and frequently had to be taken up into the mountains to avoid the valley pollution and to be able to breathe. Teddy Roosevelt spent endless childhood hours bedridden. Severe asthma limited his ability to play like other kids, and as he lay in bed struggling to breathe, Teddy was afraid to go to sleep for fear he would not wake up.

His younger brother, Elliott, became his protection against neighborhood bullies. Yet Teddy was determined to become strong mentally and physically. His desire to become self-sufficient fortified him through a daily exercise routine and hours of weight lifting. He became an avid reader and absorbed books on every conceivable subject. As a Harvard student, Roosevelt became known for his energy and enthusiasm and eventually as the President of the United States.

I loved reading about World War II General Creighton Abrams and his command as they were totally surrounded. The enemy was north, east, south and west. His reaction to this news (lemons): “Gentlemen, for the first time in the history of this campaign, we are now in a position to attack the enemy in any direction.” He not only had the desire to live, he had the desire to win.

What is intelligent ignorance? Intelligent ignorance is essentially the way you react to the unpromising or negative situations in life. It’s that quality that enables you to take a lemon and make lemonade. It’s shown in the attitude of two men who had polio. One became a beggar on the streets of Washington D.C. The other was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Intelligent ignorance is the sea of hope, the promise of good in everything that happens to us. Regardless of what happens, something positive can come from it, and we can make something good out of it. In short, we can take whatever lemons life hands us and convert it to lemonade.

Bumblebees can fly!