By: Iyo_Embong

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with 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. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

No matter what we have going on in our lives we rarely get something we want that money cannot buy by simply saying we want it or by one single effort. We can’t give up on a dream just because it isn’t easy to get. It takes tenacity. A lot of what we get out of life is directly tied to how much we want it and how much we’re willing to pursue it. Even Jesus said, “Seek and you will find.” The “Seek” part means to pursue. It doesn’t mean we sit on the balcony wishing for what could be, it means we get up and GO after it.

It means we make a choice to be tenacious and live with persistent determination each and every day. We decide in advance not to give up at the first sign of the hill because we know that what’s on the other side is worth the climb.

We might be trying to get clean and sober. Or we may want to start a new career. Maybe we are trying to make a sale or promote something. We could be depressed and are trying to do the simple things we have to do just to get by until it passes and we feel better. Again, it takes persistent determination and the unwillingness to give up in order to succeed.

We accept the fact that there will be adversity along the way and we understand that while we can’t always control the challenges we face, we can control our response to them. They may occasionally knock us down but we can choose to keep getting up and keep moving forward.

Most of us can probably see many people in our lives that have done something that went beyond what anyone expected them to achieve. It could be someone raised in poverty who managed not only to get an education, but to go past that to achieve great things to help others who are being raised like they were.

Those people in this world who have been injured severely yet they don’t let lost limbs or scars keep them from success. Where it might take us a lot of effort, for them it takes a tenacious effort to do simple things, yet they go on to succeed way beyond what any of us could see them doing.

People who have been given a particular talent and are not using it need to remember that it was given to them for a reason. Sometimes we don’t know what that reason is, but it does have a purpose.

It may take tenacity to find the time to use that talent to help others if we don’t see how we can make a living with it, but life is not all about money. When we use the gifts we were given, we are rewarded in many ways, sometimes this may manifest as money or income, and others times it’s just the joy we receive in giving.

It’s not easy. No one said it would be. But is it worth it? Only you can answer that. Guess we’ll never really know though unless we try but based on the examples set by many others before us, my gut feeling is that it’s worth it indeed.

Whatever you attempt, remember to be tenacious and you will succeed.

By: Iyo_Embong 2012©Copyright. Any distribution, reproduction or copying of any part of this article is forbidden. If you wish to use this article please only use the first 2-3 lines as an excerpt and link back directly to the article along with the Authors name.