PERSEVERE

This is my mantra: PERSEVERE, PERSEVERE, PERSEVERE! What is perseverance? Adherence to a course of action, belief, or purpose with steadfastness. To stay the course, to hold steady in the wind, to be firm and resolved about your purpose. I would much rather be flighty, restless and squirrelly (as my dad would say). If you have seen a squirrel trying to cross the road in a frantic, confused manner, you can picture how I usually live my life.

Persevering means to continue on a course even when it’s lost its pizzazz, sparkle and newness. It’s looking at the path far ahead and plotting the right direction. This can be difficult in an instant-gratification society. When you don’t like your job, you quit, when your car loses its new smell, it’s time to upgrade, when your spouse seems dull, you trade them in for a new one.

Anyone who is truly successful has learned to master perseverance. They have experienced all the phases: Phase 1) Newness and excitement. Phase 2) Challenges and overcoming difficulty. Phase 3) Mastery and monotony. Phase 4) Persevering.

I love the first stage. The "what if" stage. The possibilities are limitless. A new love, a new job, a new business, a new house, a new town. It's easy to want to stay in this stage, to live only on excitement. When phase two starts and you feel the slight twinge of discomfort from dealing with challenges and difficulties you are ready to abandon ship. But if you do, you will never make it to the crucial stage: the phase of perseverance. Without it, we give up too soon. With it, the rewards are finally realized, and our efforts and endurance are returned with interest.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

This is one expression both my parents could agree on. I heard it over and over as a child. It is very easy to put all of your energy into one thing. It may be a job, a relationship, money, your mate, your friends. Your identity is based on that one thing. If it fails, you’re a failure; if it succeeds, you’re a success.

My husband was a good example of this. He worked at a winery, where most of his time and energy was spent. He loved it! It gave him value and worth. He had other priorities, but this was his biggest. But this all changed the day we had our daughter. Now the winery didn’t seem as important. He knew he had to make a change. So he did the unthinkable, and quit. When he quit, he lost all his eggs. He lost his identity, his value, his worth.

This was a valuable lesson that he willingly learned. Some people are not given the option. Many don’t realize they have put so much emphasis on one thing until it’s gone. Maybe they have neglected friends and family in order to put all their energy into their marriage. Perhaps they have neglected all of their friends and family to concentrate on their career. The disaster is just waiting to happen. The day the basket breaks. The day the mate leaves, or the job is lost.

Just like the stock market, the safest course is diversification. To have many assets spread evenly across the board. To keep all things balanced and in proper perspective. Develop friendships with a variety of people. Enjoy your mate, but don’t neglect your family. Appreciate your career, but know it’s just one of your assets. Remember that all things in life are transient. A job can be gone tomorrow, a family member lost indefinitely, a friendship severed. Choose the best eggs carefully, treat them delicately and make sure you don’t put them all in one basket.

My children will be just as dysfunctional

So far, I have never met someone who has made a conscious decision to procreate, and invest twenty years of their life, just for the fun of damaging their children beyond repair. Yet that is usually what happens. Even families that seem to be the cream of the crop, the most normal of all, will still have dysfunctional children. No matter how good we are as parents, there will always be issues, years of counseling, baggage and resentment.

As parents, you can’t win. You work … they hate you because you didn’t spend enough time with them. You don’t work … your kids hate being poor. Not enough of this, too much of that. So you may be asking, are children really worth it? Of course they are, because even dysfunctional children can still be a blessing to their parents, and truthfully, when that strong maternal instinct kicks in, there is usually not much you could say that would convince someone that having a cute, adorable, bundle of joy is not worth it.

So what’s the point in trying? You try because deep down you hope that someday your children will realize that you tried to do what was best for them, and they will look at the big picture, and maybe at their grandparents and even great-grandparents, and notice that each of them tried, with all they knew at the time, given their background, to make the best decisions. Perhaps their perspective was wrong, or their thinking was based on inaccurate information, but they still loved you and exerted a great amount of effort to raise you.

One of my mom’s favorite expressions is, “Being a mom is a thankless job.” She usually tells us this soon after we’ve informed her that she has single handedly ruined us forever. She then follows it by the mother’s curse: “I hope that someday your children are just like you.” So the cycle continues indefinitely. Someday I will realize that, no matter how hard I tried not to, I still managed to raise dysfunctional children.

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