Benjamin Carson: From ‘Dummy’ To Don

“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary”- Jim Rohn

Someone once said, “If you don’t take risks, you will always work for someone who does. Many graduates keep going around with their certificates, looking for a secured job. They are carried away with the illusion of safety and salary. There are no guarantees in life; life itself is a risk. Everything that you want in life but you don’t have is actually outside of your comfort. I repeat: Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of your comfort zone. Joseph Campbell said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”. The worst way to play the game of life is playing it safe. You won’t get anywhere in life if you are always playing it safe. We are naturally wired to play it safe. We must consistently and continuously interrupt this natural tendency if we want to reach our destinations in life.

The poor seek safety while the rich have a healthy appetite for risk. The risk is actually worth taking to have a life worth living. In order to win in life, you will have to risk loss. Life will never provide warranties and guarantees. It can only provide possibilities and opportunities. It is up to us to convert them into success. Seeking security closes your eyes to opportunities. When we refuse to take risk, we trade long-term possibility for short-term security. Sometimes, you have to risk it all for a dream only you can see.

You’ve got to discover the one thing that you were created to be and be willing to pay the price to be it. One of the greatest Neurosurgeons ever is Dr. Benjamin Carson, a man known to have ventured into uncharted medical territories. A man whose name and profession is synonymous with risks. Carson believed strongly that the greatest risk is to take no risk at all. He had saved many lives by taking risks that were adjudged in the medical parlance as suicidal.

Ben Carson spent his childhood as an at-risk child on the streets of Detroit, and today he takes daily risk in performing complex surgeries on the brain and spinal cord. Carson discovered his hand-eye co-ordination and three-dimensional reasoning skills and decided to specialize in neurosurgery. After medical school, he became a Neurosurgery resident Doctor at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. In 1987, Carson became the first Surgeon to successfully separate conjoined twins, the Binder twins, who had been joined at the back of the head. Ben Carson took the risk and delved in an area human beings dreaded to attempt, worked for 22 hours in a 70-member surgical team and successfully separated them.

He also achieved fame by performing intrauterine surgery through implanting a ventriculo-amniotic shunt to correct hydrocephalus in an unborn twin baby. Ben Carson always explained how embracing risks had led him to greater success. Ben, in the course of his career, made a trip to Singapore and met the Bijani twins. Ladan and Laleh who had been co-joined in the head were determined to live separate lives even if the risk would cost their lives. They had reached 29years of age and were at a life altering cross-road because Laleh wanted to pursue a career in journalism while her sister wanted to continue in the legal field. Before his involvement, he weighed the risks and asks himself “what is the best/worst thing that can happen if I do?” “What is the best/worst thing that can happen if I don’t?”.  Ben Carson went ahead with the tedious task, though Ben and his team lost the twins, the great risk he took gave him a better understanding of the human brain for future surgeries.

Carson also figured out and pioneered the revival of hemispherectomy, a drastic surgical procedure in which part or all of one hemisphere of the brain is removed to control severe pediatric epilepsy. He was approached to perform this surgery on a beautiful 4-year old girl for the very first time in his career. Knowing fully well that it was extremely risky and that Maranda could easily die as a result, he agreed to give it a try. Before the surgery, Maranda literally lived her life in brief intervals between convulsions and devastating seizures. Despite the risks involved, his decision came very easily, realizing that any patient involved was still going to die with/without the surgery. Thankfully, the surgery had a much better outcome than the Bijani twins’ surgery and the young girl survived it.

A man that has taken immeasurable risks to save the life of his patients, Ben believed strongly that there is no risk that is too much to save a life or at least to give people the ability to live a better life. All Siamese twins had been waiting for the man that will set them free on their different paths and Ben was the only man that strongly believed it was inappropriate to have two separate dreams in one entity.

There are risks we take in in order to gain the experience needed to be successful. Great people do not consider failure as losing but opportunities for learning. Ben Carson has made maximum impact by taking maximum risks. Pablo Picasso said, “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”

Swami Vivekananda said, “Take risks in your life. If you win, you can lead! If you lose, you can guide.” Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. Every failed experiment takes you one more step closer to success. Consider this for a moment: to get what you want, you just need to get past your fear. Take risks in the direction of your unique abilities, talents and gifting. What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? Then go for it!

I recommend for all the graduates out there to get a copy of the book that changed my life on taking risks by Ben Carson, “Take the Risk”. In that book, Carson spoke extensively about our risk-avoidance culture, and how we place a high premium on safety. But by insulating ourselves from the unknown-the risks of life- we miss the great adventure of living our lives to their full potential. The Roman Philosopher, Seneca said, “It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult”.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing”-Helen Keller