A woman that cannot move at all showed me the meaning of real happiness.
As a young child, I would spend a lot of time with my grandfather. My grandfather was not tall nor large-built muscular man. He was pretty short and had an average body. However, not even the most muscular types would not dare to stand up to him. He was a correct, upright, and righteous man who everyone respected. He was my role model, the kind of man I wanted to become when I grew up.
Not many knew this, but he liked to read about two things: intriguing stuff such as UFOs, the Bermuda triangle, Philadelphia Experiment, etc.,
And philosophers such as Aristotle, Confucius, Descartes, and even Nietzsche.
At the age of ten, I started reading his books and talking to him about the theories’ intriguing stories. So, thus beginning my ‘taste for the enigmatic’ and my ‘love for wisdom.’
As I developed a deeper understanding of everything, I started to look for the philosophical meaning behind it all. I was always searching for a more in-depth sense behind; stories, daily events, people’s behavior, and even when watching cartoons on the television.
One day I was watching a Japanese cartoon about a samurai boy who was set on avenging his father’s murder. At a specific moment, an older man told the boy this story:
There was this island with a very advanced civilization. They have come to know that the ocean is rising rapidly and that the island will be underwater.
The government leaders first turned to their academics for guidance on how they can save their country and their lives.
The scholar’s hypothesis was to build a wall around the island and hope it is high and robust enough to hold out the water.
Not feeling content and assured by the recommendation, they went to the retired intellectuals who have more experience in life for their advice.
They proposed to build a holy place where everybody can come together, pray for God’s mercy, and hope that he would spare the island.
Needless to say, that this proposal did not convince the rulers either. Therefore, they turned to the wise older man for his advice.
The wise man told them, ‘learn to live underwater.’
This story captivated my mind and became the motto that I would live my life by; Accept, Adapt, and then Thrive in unusual circumstances.
I lived my life always putting myself in situations in which I would have to challenge myself to; accept, adapt, and trying to thrive.
As I got older in my mid-forties, I realized that I could not keep living as I were living. I cannot keep starting from zero, climbing my way up to bring it all down again. I must adapt to living an ordinary life. It was then that I found a true example of; ‘Learning to live underwater.’
I saw a picture of her on a media site. I sent her a message, and we started to chat. It clicked between us immediately. We were having a great conversation, and I decided to check her profile out and noticed a wheelchair in all her full body pictures. I asked her what was up with that, and she told me that she suffered a stroke and has a condition called Locked-In syndrome because of that. She was completely paralyzed but did not pity herself in the least bit. She could not even speak, yet she was the most confident and happiest person I ever met.
I was always so proud of how I could continuously adapt and thrive in tight situations. Now I came to meet a woman who truly knows the meaning of; ‘Living Underwater.’
Our chats became more and more frequent. As one thing leads to another, three years later, we got married before a priest who blessed our union with tears in his eyes.
I always knew that I was meant to live a more than ordinary life but did not have the faintest idea of how it would be. I am married to the most gorgeous and amazing woman. She takes me to places I never thought I would go. I find myself giving lectures and speeches, giving motivational talks to a broad public from teenagers up to academics. I even found myself giving a TED talk.
Of all the adventures I have been through, I never thought that I would end up as one of the leading characters in a love story. However, here I am today, living/sharing a life less ordinary at the side of an extraordinary woman.
Circumstances can be out of our hands. However, how we react to it gives us the power not to just overcome but also to thrive.
– Henning
Find out more about Kati on her website http://katilepisto.fi/en and learn more from her life in her autobiography, “Living Underwater.” To purchase the book on Amazon Indian Website, click here .
We had a truly amazing chat when Kati and Henning joined us for a short while. Here it is :