gritty persistence
Can you still keep going when things feel challenging and uncertain?
Can you keep going when you are running low on energy and inspiration and maybe feeling extra bluesy?
Can you persist and move forward even when you are sad or experiencing big disappointment?
Is there a path through the let down and the drain?
What do you do when it all goes wrong?
How do you carry on when it feels like you are still standing at the same doors, trying to beat them down or cajole the person on the other side to open them, same as you have been doing for what seems like an immeasurably long amount of time?
Maybe it’s time for a pivot. Maybe all your doors are closed because you haven’t been looking up or around or far enough down the path. Perhaps you aren’t meant to be walking through another door; maybe it’s time to test out your wings and take flight instead.
If your pancakes have spilt all over the ground, and you’re full of disappointment and just do not know what to do… maybe you’re meant to be having ice cream! Maybe there’s another tasty option just over there!
Maybe you are too stuck on what you think you need to see or create or be offered, so you aren’t realizing losing your “pancakes” (fill in the blank with whatever thing you’ve lost or whatever idea of success you’ve been clinging to without receiving) wasn’t the end of the world.
Can you keep going when your efforts feel in vein? Can you have hope for future you and for the brighter days you are moving into? Can you believe in everything yet to come? Can you maintain a strong, unwavering, steadfast, stubborn determination for your beautiful, joyous vision of your life and your own trust in yourself to live it?
…ok, maybe it will waver sometimes. Like when you are standing there, staring at the pancakes you’ve lost to the dirty ground, wishing things looked different right now, feeling impatient that you still haven’t gotten a warm, syrup-y bite in your mouth, after all this time and all your hard work and tries!
It isn’t the fearless who are brave. Courageous is the one who feels fear and lives anyway. The one who experiences fear and yet does not let it rule their lives or make their decisions for them.
Similarly, the wavering does not define you. Just because you have lows times or you give in temporarily to great disappointment or question-filled doubt, just because you feel saddened and impatient with all your hard work and little to show for it… this does not mean you are failing or that you won’t see it through to the next stunning evolution.
The sunrise is coming, just over the horizon. Your victory is imminent. Do not stop.
Bolster yourself in any way you know how, in whatever manner works. Surround yourself with people who help you keep going. Throw the windows open and look around with more curiosity and a broader lens, because maybe, just maybe, there are possibilities you haven’t discovered yet, while you were busy and focused on something else.
Or maybe the very thing you want is working its way towards you right now, even if slower than expected, and there is no good sense in phoning it in, or else you’ll never reach it!
If nothing else comes out of my wildly uncomfortable, challenging, frustrating (though also joyful, delightful, and beloved in many ways!) experience of being a twenty-something wondering everything there is to wonder, with few answers, and trying to figure out moving my life forward, with much belabored effort, impatience, and such long liminal spaces of tension — No Longer Here but Not Yet There — at least I hopefully will begin to embody more resilience and the capacity for joy in the middle of chaos, stress, and unknowns. The ability to carry on and keep carrying on, with delight and curiosity instead of obligation and doom. The wonder to ask What If? and to move forward into each new day with a gentleness, boldness, and brightness. The wisdom to be present in the moments of my life. A stubborn “hopepunk” for good times and bad.
It’s what I wish for myself. It’s what I’m trying to practice. Maybe you too?
