On Perseverance…
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Part of what I want to do with this blog as I set out is to share my life. I don’t have extraordinary struggles. Mostly my struggles are of my own creation. Yet they are struggles that most of us share, and as such it is vital that I try to reach out. Even if I can only affect one life, it is better than if I had done nothing due to fear of failure or ridicule. So I will write of them, I shall take all my worries and my sorrows and my failures and write them on the pages of history, in the hopes that someone else in this beautiful disaster of life will see the meaning thereof.
Today, I suffered an egregious setback in one aspect of my life. It was due to tiredness and slightly brazen carelessness on my part. It was a little thing, but one where patience and attention were key to safety. I had spent literal days on that project, working, plotting, scheming, planning, and managing everything to the best of my abilities. And yet in one tired moment all that planning was turned into nothing, vanished into the ether as if it had never been.
It is moments like these that try me hardest. I have been and will always be my own worst critic. Instantly waves of judgement and regret assault me. My brain points out everything I did wrong, all the things that could and should have been done differently. And endless round of mental finger pointing begins, each one inevitably landing on me, spearing me with doubt and anguish. I wonder if it is all for naught. If I wouldn’t be better off packing it all in, and living a quiet life away from anything difficult or challenging. Hadn’t I just proven completely unequal to the task of doing something great? Wasn’t what I had just done proof positive that anything complex is beyond my ability? I should just continue living a life of quietness. Work my day job, make my piddling retirement, and continue to spin furiously in my small hamster wheel until it’s time to push daisies.
See what I mean? It gets awfully negative in a hurry. I’ve begun to realize something however, and I think this is the part that needs sharing most. Those prophecies of doom and gloom? That life, damned to eternal drudgery until my demise? They could very well happen, and if I maintain the attitude that led to those thoughts, it will happen. However! I can choose another path. As my favorite president, and one of the most inspirational humans ever, famously stated above, it is our resolve that is our single greatest asset. It is our will, our mindset, and our desires that will drive us past our failings. All men and women are knocked down, yet only the resolute will continue to get back up time after time and try again.
In the end, it is a decision I must make each time I am like this. Do I let this latest failure define me for the rest of my life? Or do I add it to the long list of other such instances, get back up, dust myself off, and keep marching to the beat of my own drum? My wife likes to poke fun at my families tendency for pig-headed stubbornness. I think it’s high time that I put that streak to good use. I have plenty of evidence which points to how I can’t do something, how I have never been able to do that thing well. All I must do is simply acknowledge my failure, wrap myself in the armor of my own resolve, and head right back into the thick of it.
– Justin
