Thank you for all of the encouraging comments on my last post. They were much appreciated. Your comments got me thinking about quitting, failure, and other such things, and I asked myself a question.
What is the opposite of quitting?
The obvious answer is, well, not quitting. Finishing what's started. Perseverance.
If we say pressing on is the opposite of giving up, then the antidote to quitting and the fuel for perseverance is hope.
Hope is a beautiful thing. Hope doesn't require completion. It doesn't matter how long, or how hard we strive to attain a goal, as long as we have even the faintest glint of hope, we will never quit. We pause. We may rest, or re-group. But we rise again to reach for the goal.
People say it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. There is great wisdom in that short proverb, but I want to take it a step further. Without hope, we'd never step on the field to play the game in the first place.
And so I urge you, guard your hope closely. Clutch it tightly to your chest, shielding it from life's tempest like a candle in a storm. Feed the flame eagerly, nurture it into a raging inferno that consumes you from within. For from the ashes of our self-doubt and self-imposed limitations our dreams will rise, realized.
I hope for you. Whatever your dream, I hope for you.
You're right, hope is a powerful thing; it really can change everything.
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with stepping away to get a different perspective.
ReplyDeleteHope is a good thing. We all have to have hope. Oh..and faith and love. ;)
I'll only say this (it's a quote I hold close to my heart on a daily basis):
ReplyDeleteI never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it.
Press on brother. Press on. One inch at a time.