Determination
“Don’t ever give up on something or someone that you can’t go a full day without thinking about.”
Anonymous
Do you remember your mother telling you, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well”? I do. I also remember all the half-finished quilts I discovered in her house after her death. She made beautiful, hand-stitched quilt-tops with ten-thousand tiny, carefully cut pieces, and then packed them away in a box and stuck them at the back of a closet. I found one crazy quilt made of velour and heavily embroidered, in the old style, with flowers, birds, fountains, trees. I’m sure she spent years sewing that one quilt alone, but there it was, on the top shelf of a closet, unfinished. If you ever want to get truly motivated to finish what you start, just spend a couple of years cleaning out your parents’ home.
I am holding myself to a different standard—determined to finish projects before starting new ones. That’s terribly hard for an ‘idea’ person—tons of ideas, but quickly bored when the work becomes tedious. My mother was a perfectionist. If she decided one of her quilts was imperfect, she allowed frustration to rule the day. Think what our world would be like now if, say, Eli Whitney had thrown down his wrench before finishing the cotton gin, or Steve Jobs had given up in frustration at the imperfections in the first Apple computer!
Giving up will never get the job done. Determination is a not only a virtue, but also a necessary skill in today’s world. Our young people will likely not live the American dream unless they develop the grit and fortitude to go the full distance. No one can do it for them, and they’ll appreciate life more if they have to work hard to achieve their personal vision. Encouragement is the gift that we can give them.
If you have a dream, even if it seems like a pipe dream, break it down into achievable steps and work toward it. Achieving your dream may take time, but if you think about it every day, if it lives in your heart, don’t give up. “Anything worth doing is worth doing well!”
Channeling my mother,
Jane
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