Youth Focus with Dr Manners Msongelwa
PERSISTENCE is an act of continuing in spite of difficulty or opposition. In this definition, we can notice two words that stand out and those are: difficulty and opposition.
Difficulty and opposition are essential for your progress. If you don’t experience any difficulty or opposition, then you wouldn’t need any persistence. Persistence makes it all worthwhile.
Patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, problems, or suffering without becoming annoyed or anxious.
This means that you are not annoyed, if you don’t see results immediately. You are not annoyed if it would take years to accomplish what you set out to accomplish.
The reason why some students succeed and some fail is because those that fail give up sooner than those that succeed. By cultivating patience and persistence, you can become a more effective student and achieve your goals with greater ease and confidence.
Knowing trees, you will understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, you can appreciate persistence.
Trees and grass need time to grow and therefore, they symbolise patience. It is the same with us, too. You need time to achieve goals, especially big goals and this requires patience. If you are too impatient, desiring to have immediate results, you might be disappointed and quit our goals.
You have to study, improve yourself, change your mindset and work toward your goals. You have to water your goals with ambition, motivation and effort so that they will come true, just as you need to water a tree so it can grow. Most trees need years to grow and become big trees. Big goals also need time and you, therefore, need patience, just like a tree.
Grass often grows through concrete. It can also grow on rocks. It possesses persistence, the ability to continue and not quit until it finds a way to emerge outside, in the sun and air. Can you compare your efforts to the efforts of the grass? Do you continue what you start until you accomplish it, no matter what obstacles are on your way?
It is so easy to quit when you confront obstacles and opposition. However, if you continue and then win, you will feel a great satisfaction. Every student meets obstacles on the way, but only those who don’t let the obstacles discourage them, ultimately, win and achieve success. This applies to learning and everything else.
There is a great feeling of achievement, when you persist and don’t give up! When you persist, you go the whole way and don’t turn back after a few steps. Only those that keep going reach their destination.
Keep going, even if you see no improvement. Don’t give in to laziness and procrastination.
Dr Manners Msongelwa is an author, teacher and youth coach. He can be contacted on +263771019392