nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
talent will not; nothing is more commonplace than successful
men with talent.
genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. ~calvin coolidge
this is the Tao of success--the way--and like every other truth, it's at once very simple and very difficult. not the understanding as much as the doing, because the Tao of success is patience and persistence. patience is the art of waiting. like all high arts, it takes time to master, which shouldn't be surprising, since patience is the knowledge of time. how to use time to your advantage, how to be at the right place at the right time, how to pick your moments, how to bite your tongue. patience is discovering the mysterious pattern of cycles that cradle the universe and ensure that everything that has happened once will recur.
perseverance in life is being steadfast; persistence is being stubborn. persistence is grittier than perseverance. perseverance is achievement's perspiration; persistence is its sweat. persistence is knocking on Heaven's doors so often and so loudly on behalf of your dreams that eventually you'll be given what you want, just to shut you up. for example, think of an eleven -year-old child who want to get her ears pierced sooner than her sixteenth birthday, the age her old-fashioned mother thinks is appropriate. the first request, even if it comes in a burst of emotion, doesn't succeed. nor does the second, the third, or even the fourth. but the child who goes at you, morning, afternoon, and night, week after week, month after month; this child's voice is water to the rock of your reason. this stubborn but patient child wears you down, which is why you end up at the mall on her twelfth birthday, shaking your head as you pay to adorn her earlobes with tiny gold balls.
the potent alchemy of patience and persistence, which together become endurance, must have been what the lebanese poet hoda al-namai was meditating on when she wrote:
i have not withdrawn into despair,
i did not go mad in gathering honey,
i did not go mad,
i did not go mad,
i did not go mad.
if you are determined to gather life's honey, to stick your hand into the hive again and again and again, to be stung so many times that you become numb to the pain, to persevere and persist till those who know and love you become unable to think of you as a fairly normal woman, you will not be called mad.
you will be called authentic.
~simple abundance:a daybook of comfort and joy
~sarah ban breathnach
so.
after that lengthy read...
gather your honey.
just BE.
robin.
