Perseverance Pays Off

The man who removed the mountain began by carrying away small stones.” (Chinese proverb). “Every noble work is impossible at first.” (Carlyle) The story is told of King Robert the Bruce of Scotland who, after defeat in battle, hid in a lonely cave. He tried to plan the future but was tempted to despair. He had lost heart and had decided to give up when his eye was caught by a spider. The insect was carefully and painfully making its way up a slender thread to its web in the corner above. The king watched as it made several unsuccessful attempts, and thought, as it fell back to the bottom again and again, how it typified his own efforts. Then, at last, the spider made it. The king took courage and persevered, and the example of the spider brought its reward.

Two frogs fell into a deep cream bowl. One was an optimistic soul: But the other took the gloomy view.

“We shall drown,” he cried without much ado.

So with a last despairing cry, He flung up his legs and said “Goodbye”.

More Quoth the other frog with a merry grin, “I can’t get out, but I won’t give in.

I’ll just swim around till my strength is spent, Then will I die the more content.” More Bravely he swam till it would seem His struggles began to churn the cream On the top of the butter at last he stopped, And out of the bowl he gaily hopped.

More What of the moral? ‘Tis easily found: If you can’t hop out, keep swimming around.

On his voyage, which resulted in the ‘discovery’ of America, Columbus refused to listen to the threats of his sailors. As day after day no land appeared, the sailors threatened to mutiny, and demanded that they turn back. Columbus would not listen, and each day he entered two words in the ship’s log: ‘Sailed on’.

“Even the woodpecker owes his success to the fact that he uses his head and keeps pecking away until he finishes the job which he started.” (Coleman Cox) Thomas Edison made about 18 000 experiments before he perfected arc light. Dr Jonas Salk worked 16 hours a day for three years to perfect the polio vaccine. A chemist, Paul Ehrlick, worked day and night for years to perfect a chemical known as ‘606’, which would destroy the germ that causes syphilis. He had made 605 unsuccessful experiments; but the 606th was a success, hence the name ‘606’. Perseverance.

To the famous American Civil War general, Ulysses Grant, this saying is attributed: “Everyone has his superstitions. “One of mine has always been that, when I started to go any- where, or to do anything, never to turn back or to stop until the thing intended was accomplished.” The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it – so fine that we are often on the line and we do not know it.