The Greeting Card That Woke Me Up
A short story that reminds us that perseverance pays off. We hope you enjoy this inspirational short story full of words of wisdom.Short Stories
The Greeting Card That Woke Me Up
by Byron Pulsifer © 2007
Life is easy, change is easy, and everything is easy. If only this was true. How often have we looked at successful people in almost any walk of life and wished we could have what they have. It seems so easy for them. Well, nothing is as easy as it seems. But, what makes the difference; what has made other people's success look easy?
Not too long ago, I was faced with what appeared to be a brick wall. After leaving a corporate environment for greener pastures, I found that the other side wasn't any greener, nor did there seem to be any grass at all. No matter what I attempted to do, I was invariably knocked back to square one. So, I started another business venture, again to be knocked back to square one.
I began to doubt my own confidence; maybe I had made a fatal error. Maybe, I should go back to what I did before. At least, it seemed to be a much more secure and safer environment. As I contemplated my future, I received a card in the mail from a friend of mine who knew how I was struggling. The card read: "Persistence; persistence prevails when all else fails".
I sat there reading that card, once, twice, three times. What did these words mean for me? Were these words just that; words, nothing more? When you're faced with an uncertain future, when all you try seems to go nowhere, maybe there was more truth to these words than I realized.
Maybe, I hadn't found the right recipe for success. On the other hand, maybe I had given up too soon. Ever heard the expression 'back up and re-load'. Well, if you haven't, it meant to me that I should start again but this time internalizing the words "persistence prevails when all else fails".
To make a long story short, I did persevere; persistence paid off with a good dose of patience realizing that a new beginning doesn't emerge to success overnight. After all, in my former corporate career, I had invested years of education and training to become successful. Why should it be any different when I started a new business venture?
Failure is the incapacity to learn from your mistakes. Success is the capacity to learn, to persist, to persevere in order to reach your goal. Life can be filled with failures, but only those who don't persevere adopt failure as the way it has to be.
Perseverance plays a very dominant role in my life but it wasn’t always this way. I can remember when I was in high school that I was more prone to just back down or give up when I met a roadblock or some resistance. It really wasn’t that I couldn’t do more; I just felt at the time that it was useless to crave something that would only meet resistance.
Over the next few years, though, I came to a realization and that put simply stated that I was more than a person who crumbled at the sight and sound of everything that was difficult to acquire or accomplish.
I believe that my true self emerged from a deep sleep. This was a sleep that was more self-imposed than was actually real. I also believe that seeing what others were able to accomplish also awakened a need to excel at some chosen field of endeavor although I was unsure what that would be.
It didn’t take long for me to understand that my desires where linked inexplicitly to my underlying abilities to persevere if I chose to and not to relish any other person’s suggested routine or desires. Each one of us has to wake up to unleash that which we can do and it is an inner desire to achieve something for which we take total accountability and ownership that allows us to move forward with zeal and an attitude of I can.