DAILY CHOICE: Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Endure vs. Give In

REFLECTION:

How far you go in reaching your full potential is often a function of how long you last. Moving from what you are to what you could be is an extended travel. Rewards come to those who not only aspire but strive as well. Toiling upward, ever upward, is not easy but it can be satisfying. The work is made easier by the realization that there are others, past and present, who have paved the way for you, just as your labor will light the way for future travelers. Endurance, persistence, relentless efforts giving way only when good sense or honor directs, knowing that what separates each of us in the end is tipping the scale slightly from sinner to saint. That you will fall along the way is certain. Whether you will get back up is your choice and yours alone. If you do not, all the talent, genius and education in the world will not repair. Average people rise up every day and make a difference because they absolutely make the choice that failure will not be the final mark on their life’s sentence. Tenacity times ten.

MUSES:

To be somebody you must last.
Ruth Gordon

It is a long road from conception to completion.
Moliere

We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.
Goethe

The heights by me reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job.
James 5:3

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received.
Albert Einstein

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.
Winston Churchill

The Saints are the Sinners who keep on trying.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Fall seven times, stand up eight.
Japanese proverb

Nothing in the world will take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men of talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

I am only an average man, but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.
Theodore Roosevelt

When I was a young man I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. I didn’t want to be a failure, so I did ten times more work.
George Bernard Shaw

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.
Louis Pasteur