Get the Staying Power

Picture credit: flickr.com

There are some of us who are attempting to give up on our dreams and goals due to the many difficulties and challenges on our paths. It is looking as if help won’t come, and our strength will fail. To those of us, I leave these words; “Go on, Sir (Madam), go on. The difficulties you meet with will rejoice themselves as you advance. Proceed; and light will dawn and shine with increasing clearness on your path.”

A wise king commenting on the importance of persistence and consistency of purpose, said this; “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before great men; he shall not stand before mean men.” You see, it isn’t so much of academic brilliance, ingenuity, huge financial resources as persistency and consistency of efforts and purpose that makes a person great.

The people who succeed in life are those who keep at it long enough even after others quit. Others may be more brilliant than you; they may be richer than you; they may be more talented than you are, but you can make the mark in life if you are persistent and determined enough. Maybe you are writing and no one is reading, ‘liking’ or ‘commenting’ on your work. You are singing and nobody’s listening. You are speaking and nobody’s hearing. Friends keep at it. Time will come when you will be heard and seen!

Take a look at the “Beetles”. When they became a hit and took the world by storm, John Lennon was asked by a reporter, how they became an overnight success? And he responded that for two and a half years they played in small pubs, clubs, and street corners in London, just for anybody and everybody who cared to listen. – Whatever success they recorded was due to those long and hard two and a half years!

Persistence produces power. “People know that it is useless to oppose a man who uses his stumbling blocks as stepping stones; who is not afraid of defeat; who never in spite of calumny or criticism, shrinks from his task; who never shirk responsibility; who always keeps his compass pointed to the north star of his purpose, no matter what storms may rage about him.” Let that man, that woman be you! Live your greatest life!