The Stripy Strudel's Journal

“Human's physiological and psychological abilities are up to date poorly researched,” the lecturer's monotonous voice pontificated. “To believe in your own strength, to realize the depth of your hidden reserves is the way to discover the concealed abilities that each of us has.” The man who was telling this didn't look anything like a Tibetan monk who long ago had found the key to the secrets of his body and soul. He looked about twenty-five, and most of all resembled a programmer who had been working enthusiastically for the last fourty-eight hours.

Mark was sitting in the third row of a lecture hall and fiddling with a leaflet inviting to the “Unique seminar on the original method of discovering your own potential”. He was scolding himself for coming to this stupid lecture in the first place, and also for feeling so inconvenient to just stand up and leave that he was listening to this plod for one solid hour already. He had failed to follow almost in the very beginning and was by now altogether sure that there was nothing to follow, and that the lecturer whom the leaflet styled “Certified professor” was making no headway from the very start. Mark had dropped in on the unique seminar after work, and now the fatigue, lack of sleep and the lecturer's monotonous voice did their bit. Mark sank into a muddled, absurd dream where he was analyzing his, or maybe someone else's undocumented abilities with a disassembler, but finding nothing but useless features canceling out other useless features.

He woke up because someone touched his shoulder. “Hey, sir! I have to lock the hall.” It was the certified professor. Mark sprang up and guiltily rushed to the door. “It's OK, it's OK”, assured the professor. “What do you think, did you like it?” His vivid voice was now nothing like the colorless recitative of the lecture. Mark stopped halfway to the door. “Well…” he mumbled and immediately cursed himself for doing it. “Honestly, I didn't exactly understand…” He cursed himself in the choicest language for saying this just because he had to say something, and prepared for at least half an hour of boring explanations. But the certified professor was already looking at Mark with understanding and interest, and there was no way back. “I didn't exactly understand what those abilities are that you can discover in yourself if you believe in your strength.” To believe and to discover were the only things Mark remembered from the entire lecture, but the professor seemed to enjoy this question as if he never had heard anything more interesting. “This is the most important thing! If you really believe in yourself, you'll realize that there's nothing impossible for you, and that you can do anything.” “Like what? Will I be able to move objects with my eyes?” “No, why? That's a stereotype. You don't have to move objects with your eyes. In fact, you wan't even need it because someone for whom nothing is impossible gains the firmest self-confidence and doesn't need to move objects with his sight to confirm it — it becomes simply unnecessary!”

“Hey, hey, wait a minute. Are you saying that I have to believe in myself in order to have a reason to be self-confident? What's the point of it?” Mark was really interested now. “The point is simple. For example, are you self-confident?” “Well… yes. Yes, I'm self-confident.” “But why? On what grounds?” the professor kept asking. “Well, I'm a good specialist, I'm valued at work, I've achieved everything I have myself…” Mark never thought about this before, but it was unexpectedly easy to find the answer. “See? You're self-confident because you have this and that. But what if you don't have it tomorrow — will you still be self-confident? But if someone is self-confident because he believed in himself and discovered his unlimited abilities, this won't go anywhere, anywhere at all!” Mark considered this. The professor was talking obvious nonsense, but Mark couldn't spot where the error was. “What about you, did you believe in yourself and discover your concealed abilities?” he asked. “Mind you, I'm still far from mastering my full potential. But I've made significant advancement.”

Mark walked home and couldn't get the blatant rubbish that the certified professor talked out of his head. During the dinner and later in bed, falling asleep, he was still chewing the already tasteless logical cud. Only deep in the night he fell into a dreamless sleep. In the morning he woke up as a firmly self-confident man.

По-русски: Безграничные возможности