August’s Intention: Perseverance

August is here!  It feels like the months are just rolling over, but I’m determined to differentiate.  I don’t like the feeling of not being able to track time and growth (even though time is an illusion).  If we can’t track our growth then we won’t be able to see our advancement over a period of time.  You should be proud of how far you’ve gotten despite all of the obstacles and walls that we’re put up against you.  No matter what, you kept going!  This month’s intention is 

Perseverance 

Continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure or opposition

Maybe We Should Practice Avoidance

Often, when we talk about perseverance we think it’s amazing that we’ve been through all of this hardship and kept going.  Yet, those of us who do struggle with the “difficulties, failure, or opposition” are looked down upon for wanting out.  Sometimes I feel like there is an incessant need for us to deeply struggle in the world before we come out on top.  The need to struggle instead of not struggling (if that’s an option), slows our progress down.  Not everything requires your perseverance, instead some things require your avoidance.  Why go through the unnecessary pain that generations before us have made into a tradition, if we don’t have to? I’m not saying that we’re not going to struggle and have hardships in life.  We should be able to go through the hardships and obstacles that are specific to our lives and what we chose for ourselves. 

Perseverance Needs to Be Worth It

I’m all here for perseverance, I just want it to be worth it.  Persevering through a journey on a path that you didn’t chose yourself is a waste of your time.  If you’re going to persevere at least put that “continued effort” into something that is worth it.  Your path is yours and only yours.   Don’t let others force you to go through an unnecessary struggle, simply because they say that’s what’s best.  Persevering is only worth it if your end goal stays the same throughout your entire journey.  But if it changes, so should your hardships and struggles.  In other words you shouldn’t be struggling or facing obstacles for something that you don’t even want to do with your life.  If you’re plans change does this mean that your struggles will get easier? No, it just means they change. 

Don’t Be Embarrassed

What we don’t talk enough about is whether persevering is even worth it.  Often times, we set out to do something with our lives and try to stick to that path because changing our minds can be embarrassing.  Society makes it embarrassing, it’s perfectly normal to not have the same job for 50 years. We are all multifaceted, but the  environment that we live in makes it hard for us to explore all of the possibilities within us.  I want us to all explore ourselves as much and as often as possible.  We are always growing and changing.  We owe it to ourselves to see what we can become.  You are not bound to anything in life.  Not to a place, not to people, and you are not bound to your initial or latter thoughts.  Struggle is inevitable, so why make persevering harder than it needs to be?