Today's Quotation:

Life is not easy for any of us.  But what of that?  We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.  We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

Marie Curie

Today's Meditation:

Confidence in ourselves is not, for the most part, one of the easiest things for us to muster in our lives.  But do we deserve to have confidence in ourselves?  Absolutely.  We all have been created as marvelous human beings sharing this great planet together, and if we somehow "play small" and let life's hard times keep us from reaching our full potential, then we're robbing the world of our unique, beautiful contribution-- the contributions that only we can make.

Perseverance is one of the great keys to confidence.  In my experience with college and high school students, I often see that those who don't make it through what they're doing have given up, have refused to stick it out until the end.  In their minds they can think of many things that are much easier or much less threatening, and they decide to give up the effort and move on to something that won't be as difficult for them.

Many of these students have a great deal of potential, yet most of them will not reach that potential because they haven't believed in themselves and their ability to accomplish what they've set out to do.  Because of this, they'll possibly never know what they could have done because they simply chose the easier way out.

Of course, many people aren't ready for college when they go, and giving up is almost inevitable for them.  And perhaps these people simply aren't gifted academically, and they're better off searching elsewhere to find their true gifts.

But when we're caught up in trying to accomplish something that we truly want to accomplish, we'll do well to remember that our perseverance today may be difficult, but it's exactly what will help us to make our tomorrows more rewarding, and it will help us to reach the potential that's waiting inside of us, waiting to be reached.

Questions to ponder:

1.  Is it easy for you to persevere when times are difficult?  What makes it harder?

2.  What are you gifted at?  Are you reaching your potential in that area?

3.  What might you do to reach your potential more fully?

For further thought:

Life begins for anyone when that individual refuses to be a victim of any delimiting experience:  disease, accident, poverty, family pressure, marriage dilemma, neglect.  Whatever the curse, if you will not take it, or accept the role fate seems to offer, you can never become a mental cripple and nothing can hold you back.

David Seabury

more thoughts and ideas on perseverance

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