The popular phrase proclaims that “Good things come to those who wait.” That may well be true, but if good things come to those of us who wait around, then they come by mere chance. If it were up to me and brief addendum should be attached to the end of that statement: “and try.”Good things come to those who wait and try.Persistence.It seems like a word we don’t think much about these days. And why should we? We’ve been conditioned to think that with all of our fancy technological gadgets that we shouldn’t have to wait around for anything. The duty to expend a steady, uninterrupted effort toward the purpose of achieving a goal has been replaced by the idea that a machine or a computer can likely do it much quicker.But often there’s just no substitute for good old fashioned persistence.I’ve always been impressed by persistence. The idea that patient, continuous, hard effort is likely to be rewarded is a comforting one. It helps us realize that even when the work is difficult and unending, and the rewards are intangible and few, that if we just keep at it there might be a payoff at the end.Some of the most amazing examples of persistence go unnoticed. I’m thinking of everyday people whose lives are a struggle and who have to keep fighting and working hard just to keep their heads above water.I always think of the folk legend John Henry when I think of these people. John Henry used a hammer to drive steel into rock to make holes for explosives. He was so good at his job that he raced against a steam driller. He hammered and persisted and kept going and eventually beat the steam driller, only to die after his heart gave out due to his persistence.But there are plenty of real-life examples of remarkable persistence as well.I like the story of Dashrath Manjhi, a man in India. His wife died because his village was too remote for her to get medical care in a timely fashion. Shortly after her death Dashrath used a hammer and chisel and began carving a path through a nearby mountain to shorten the distance to medical care. For the next 22 years he worked almost non-stop with his hammer and chisel, and eventually carved a path 360 feet long, 25 feet deep, and 30 feet wide. When he was done he’d shortened the distance to the hospital from 55 km to 15 km!One of the most surprising examples of persistence comes from Richard Nixon. Everyone thinks of Nixon as a slimy, heartless dude whose own personality failings led him to resign the presidency. However, when he was a younger man who showed unbelievable persistence during his pursuit of Pat, who eventually became his wife.He loved her at first sight. She didn’t reciprocate. He asked her on a date. She declined. He asked her again. She declined again. On the third time he asked her, he told her that he was going to marry her. This didn’t make her acquiesce to his dating request though.For more than a year Dick pursued Pat. He bloodied himself trying to learn how to ice skate just so he could spend time with her. He drove her to L.A. on weekends to visit her sister, and then went back on Sunday afternoon and waited for her so he could drive her back. He even drove her on dates with other men. But in the end it paid off. He got the girl.
That’s the thing about persistence. Even when it’s difficult to see how things can possibly turn out the way you want them, you have to keep trying. The only guarantee is that a goal is never reached if it’s never attempted. Better to keep trying. Keep hammering that steel into the rock. Each individual hammer blow may feel futile, but the collection of ten thousand hammer blows is enough to penetrate the rock.It’s enough to break through.And if the hammer blows don’t work, then it’s time to change tactics. There’s more than one way to be persistent.With a little persistence, water can work wonders on rock.PREVIOUS POST: What If I Didn't See About That Girl?IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: When Not to Text+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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