Everything Counts: 52 Remarkable Ways to Inspire Excellence and Drive Results

Chapter 25. Perseverance Counts

"With perseverance, we discover the depths of our commitments; without it, we merely survive."

It may lack the nobility of integrity, the charisma of enthusiasm, the grace of generosity, and the sparkle of excellence, but the beauty of perseverance is that, in time, it always makes up for all that which it lacks. There is great virtue and glory in never giving up.

Nothing concentrates the mind or tests our character like a demanding goal—the desire to be something better than we are, to be the complete person that we are meant to be. But in the course of achieving any goal, we can expect to experience both triumph and tragedy. No great achievement comes without obstacles, including physical limitations, the unpredictability of nature, Murphy's Law, or resistance from the outside world. In fact, we should be thankful for all obstacles, for they are our practice ground. Each new victory prepares us for a greater future victory. In the end, we express our greatness not by the acts we perform, but by the perseverance that made those acts possible.

Perseverance keeps hope alive. Growth of any type requires personal struggle; in the face of stern obstacles and setbacks we need to keep moving forward, however tempting it might be to give up and let go of our dreams. Perseverance is a force that stirs us and keeps us moving on toward our goals. The inner passion of perseverance, the indomitable emotional commitment to a worthy goal or an ennobling cause, is ...