Successful perseverance means overcoming. Overcoming means fighting the enemies. They may differ person to person but they are always there. Obstacles come in external and internal varieties. However, most of our failures come from inside rather than from the outside. When I was a director of S. H. Kress I would visit the stores and ask the manager about his major problems. If the manager defined the problems as externally-generated, I had doubts about his capability; but if he defined his problems as internally-driven, then I knew he could progress. He had defined the things he could do something about.
One enemy of perseverance is recrimination or hostile transference. A couple came to me and said, "We have a problem." She really hadn't anything to do with the creation of the problem but she accepted it and took ownership of it as theirs. She didn't say, "this stupid husband of mine, much against my advice, lost his money." She knew that resolution, not recrimination was the road to solution. A hand offered instead of a finger pointed leads us toward progress.
Depression is an enemy that generally attacks us in times of trouble. Research shows that a young man today is ten times as likely to be depressed as his father, and twenty times more likely than his grandfather. A great deal of this is brought about by the artificial parameters we put on life- the pressure to succeed, as well as our definition of success. The "have it all" generation is degenerating. The greatest defense against depression I have found is gratitude. I work to constantly focus on the things I have and not concentrate on the things I don't have. The other day a friend told me that rather than go to the gym in the inclement weather he got down on the floor to do his exercises and suddenly realized that it had been months since he had looked at the beautiful ceilings in his home. I recently stopped to appreciate the beautiful art that we worked so hard to acquire. It is easy to focus on getting more. We seem to be caught in a cycle of required acquiring. Stop and give thanks --- it takes the pressure off.
Unhealthy ego demands battle with us during troublesome times. It is not a question of ego versus no-ego. It's whether or not we're promoting a healthy ego or an unhealthy one. The question is whether we are deriving ego satisfaction from others or dedicating our ego for their betterment. Loss often detaches our healthy ego and makes us feel rootless. The challenge is to find alternative satisfaction in a healthy way.
Boredom is another enemy. We become so activity oriented that whenever the pace slows down we feel we're dying. Speed and noise are our pep pills. Some friends become addicted to adrenalin; they don't know what natural health is. They go for the hype, whether it's in religion, business, or social life. They find the constant, even plodding, pace of perseverance extremely difficult. We value the fast lane, type A, jet-set lifestyle and struggle with inactivity. Boredom, to me, comes from having an entirely too narrow view of "the good life." There are so many interesting things to do, so many interesting people to meet, and so many interesting places to go, but unfortunately some people fold their road-map in all the wrong places.
Superstition can trip us. There are sincere people who feel that all the good and bad is a direct effect of their present relation with God. This is superstition, mot spirituality. They do not understand the God of process but rather believe in a God of special personal attention. Most of these people claim that during good times God is blessing them and during poor times they are being disciplined. This is much more superstition than it is faith. They feel if they can do certain good things then they can break their string of bad luck. The laws of life apply to us all, and the rain still falls on the just and the unjust alike. The problem with attributing our situation to God's favor or disfavor is that we do not take a natural approach to the solution of our problems. A. C. Greene has a good philosophy in persevering against the odds "there are a lot of people who know what they should do in life but don't possess the inner power, the courage, and the guts to do it. I don't want to be one of those people. My faith helps me keep things in perspective when things are going good, and stabilizes me when things are going bad. "He takes his faith as seriously as his basketball, and he knows that neither one depends on superstition.
Perseverance is a process and fighting through the gauntlet of doubt, depression and disappointment will make us stronger.
