“It’s easy to feel like you haven’t accomplished anything big in life so far. It’s easy to believe that you will never reach your goal. It’s easy to listen to the naysayers. Refusing to quit is much harder. Refusing to settle takes guts.”—Isaiah Hankel
We often expect life to be a steady journey. It never is. There is no such thing as “smooth sailing” or an “easy ride”. Some see life as a constant struggle. Others expect the “right” path to be clear. Life is neither. Neither is life a rollercoaster ride. The reality is that none of us are on the same path. We may, at times, share the path, but our routes are very different.
The momentum in our life is never constant. At times, we will need to overcome inertia. At times, we will feel like we are rolling along on the track to success. Or might feel like we are “rolling downhill like a snowball headed for Hell” (Merle Haggard—always good to slip a good country lyric in from time to time). Wherever we feel we are on the path, we are not going to be there for long. Things will change.
When we feel like we are getting nowhere or like we are on the wrong path, we have a choice: keep going or change direction. The question really is: “What path am I supposed to be on?” If one has considered this and has truly believed him/herself to be on the right path, then one is probably on the right path. So, if this is the case, to keep going is one’s only option. To quit, then, just stalls our progress. One either turns down the wrong path, from which one must then find the way back, or one simply sits down and waits until “inspiration” comes. Either way, progress is stalled.
There is wisdom in Dory’s words: “Just keep swimming.” We just gotta keep going. Forward through the hard times. Ignore discouragement. Ignore the naysayers. Ignore the propensity to quit. One does not see what lies ahead.
Like I have written before, what I write in this blog is written to myself. I, like everyone else, face the struggle of knowing whether I am on the right path and question why I haven’t “accomplished anything big in life so far”. I just came out of a term of teaching in which I felt that nothing I did was effective. I questioned myself at every turn. But, if I look back over my career, I would find that this happens with greater frequency than I might want to admit. Always, though, the acknowledgement of progress comes. While I might not have “accomplished anything big in life so far”. The affirmation that I am having an impact always comes when I need it—e.g., an e-mail from a former student or a comment from a friend. Following my Winter term struggles, I walked into a tremendous first week of the Spring term (at least from my perspective). My students seemed engaged and enthusiastic. I felt every day that I “left everything in this room”. Now Monday may be different. If it is, so be it. Every day is not going to be a great day. There is always a tomorrow. The important thing is that we keep pushing forward. Today, I feel like I am back on the path to success—rather, I feel like I am successful on my path.
If you have determined to do something, and it feels hard. Don’t quit. Keep going. Push through the difficulty until you succeed or until the path reveals another direction. Sometimes it takes just one more day.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!