PERSISTENCE AND/OR PERSEVERANCE

I had recently visited the department store to buy some groceries. I saw a mother and child there. The child could be 4 or 5 years of age. Everyone was busy taking their requirements. It was quiet except for the sound of the billing machine. Suddenly I heard the mother telling the child: “Not today Rashi, I have already got you 5 chocolates.” The child refused to accept the kind cajoling of the mother and was persistent in taking 2 more 5 stars. The shopkeepers also are so strategic that they display chocolates so that it is visible and reachable to the kids. The mother was very stubborn in not getting it and the child persisted in getting the 5 Stars. The mother gave a spanking and tried to carry the child out of the place. The child slipped out and lied down on the floor…..virtually embarrassing the mother. The child was yelling and screeching on the top of her voice and started to kick her leg thus blocking the way of other shoppers. The mother was very helpless and finally after about half an hour the mother succumbed to the child and got her the 5 stars and left without picking up the groceries.

While walking back my thoughts was engrossed in the incident. We may call it obstinacy of the child. I call it persistence of the child. It is a good character but I realized that persistence can be applied for achieving morally wrong, bad, and neutral and also for good purposes. A sales man keeps knocking at your house with his wares and allures you to buy from him……he had been persistent in this situation and has transformed you from a prospective buyer to a buyer. The salesman has been persistent and with perseverance tolerated your reaped rejections with courage and faith.

Persistence may not see reason, but perseverance is being persistent despite obstacles and is willing to accept all the results of the repeated efforts. Persistence is about being focused to the goal, while perseverance is about endurance and patience. Laziness is the enemy of perseverance.

Persisting means to hold firmly and steadfastly to a purpose, state or undertaking despite obstacles, warnings or setbacks, that is being tenacious. Persistence is to the character (combination of qualities differentiating one person from a group) of man/woman as carbon is to steel (Napolean Hill). Persistence is a mandatory virtue.  Persistence wears out resistance. Persistence can be motivated by positive and negative thoughts.

The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Organization behavior by Rahul Arora states that persistence is a phenomenon of increased effort after failing in a task and converting it into a success. Some research findings are: in an organization it is often considered irrational and a costly behavior; it is a disorder in self –regulation. Individuals with high self esteem persist longer and perform worse following failure feedback on a task than people with lower self esteem; men are more likely to engage in unreasonable persistence.  

Persistence is mechanical and monotonous. An interesting fable on persistent comes to my mind:

Two A and B frogs were playing in the swamp one day and decided to go exploring. They hopped off in the direction of an old farm where there were lots of fun things to explore. They came across a pail of milk and immediately jumped in it for a swim. However, they soon found themselves in danger as they tried to climb out and go home. The sides turned out to be steeper and slip-pier then they had anticipated. Both frogs continued to struggle to get out – kicking, squirming and swimming the best they could. Finally A frog just quit saying “this is way too hard, it is hopeless, I quit.” Eventually A disappeared under the milk never to rise to the surface again. The B frog wasn’t going to quit so easily and continued to kick, squirm and swim the best a frog could in that situation. Finally when the frog decided to stop he noticed that he wasn’t sinking. With all of his churning the milk had been turned into a big hunk of butter! As a result he simply climbed out of the pail.

This is sheer persistence to achieve a way out. There was no display of courage and it was just a mechanical processes…hence the result had to come ultimately. It is an adoption of the same methodology repeatedly. Will it work always, will it be for doing the right things always. A person who repeatedly shoots and misses it 10 times may succeed in killing the target on the eleventh time that is persistence for the wrong reasons.

Calvin Coolidge, 30th US President, beautifully summed up persistence as follows: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

To succeed you need to be persistent ……true. How to be persistent and how long to be persistent? Should we be persistent or work with perseverance? These questions were raised in my mind.

I goggled a bit to understand what perseverance means:

Perseverance means steady persistence in adhering to a course of action, a belief, or a purpose; steadfastness. It has a broader connotation. It is a continued steady belief or efforts, withstanding discouragement or difficulty; just being persistent. Both the terms apparently means the same: that we hold on to our objective pursuing steadfastly in spite of all the obstacles, and hardships. They are synonymous in usage. Perseverance – a lowly virtue (an admirable quality of moral excellence) whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success. (Ambrose Bierce). Confucius beautifully brings out the spirit of perseverance in this statement “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” Perseverance can be summed in this statement: “If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger hammer.” ( Alan Lewis); meaning change the tools.

This is a traditional story from Ethiopia, and a beautiful example of perseverance with moral courage.

Long time ago, a woman in a certain village adopted a boy whose parents had died of a disease. She had no children herself, and she wanted this boy to love her. He was not ready to love her; however, as his heart was still grieving for the parents he had lost. This woman loved him very much already, but she was sad that he would hardly look at her when she gave him his food. She thought she would ask advice from the wise healer in the next village, and see if there was some magic that could make the child love her.  “There is a special drink which I can make for you to give the boy,” said the healer. “When the child drinks it he will love you as his mother.” “Please make this for me,” the woman begged. The healer raised one finger. “It is difficult to make. It requires the whisker of a living lion.”

The woman felt her heart pound in her chest. What a fearful task! “I will get this whisker,” she whispered.

The next afternoon, she took some meat to a pond where lion tracks had been seen. She put the meat by the water and hid behind a tree to wait. Sure enough, at dusk a lion came. She knew by the way he sniffed the air that he knew she was there, but he was satisfied with the meat and did not bother her.

The next evening she did the same thing. The lion sniffed the air, but did not approach her, for he was satisfied with her offering. The next evening, she did the same thing but did not hide behind the tree. She crouched on the path where he could see her. She was very frightened when the lion looked at her, but she did not run away. Every day she did this, and every day she waited a little bit closer to where the lion ate. At last, after two months of this, she was placing the meat in front of the lion and waiting just a few feet away. The lion would eat the meat quickly, his great teeth gleaming in the sunset light, but the woman thought of the boy and she did not run away.

After three months there came a night when the woman placed the meat on the ground and did not move. The lion approached the meat, and sniffed her before eating. As he lowered his head to the meat, the woman reached out, and plucked one whisker from his cheek.

The next morning, the woman hurried to the next village to give the wise healer the lion’s whisker. The healer looked with astonishment at the whisker, and then smiled. “You now have everything you need to win the boy’s love.”

“The drink? You will make the drink?” the woman asked.

But the healer put a gentle hand on the woman’s arm. “You do not need any magic drink. You have learned how to win the boy’s love, with patience, and with courage, and with a small step every day, and with not running away.”

And when the woman went home she found that she could think of the boy as a lion, and approach him with the same patience and the same respect. And eventually, this boy loved her as his own mother.

This story shows faith, courage, strategic adaptation of the situations, a mindset of determination and of course persistence to continue the good work until you succeed.

The following story from our mythology retold by Swami Vivekananda also narrates the rewards of perseverance

There was a great god-sage called Nārada. He was a good Yogi, and very great. He travelled everywhere. One day he was passing through a forest, and saw a man who had been meditating until the white ants had built a huge mound round his body—so long had he been sitting in that position. He said to Nārada, “Where are you going?”.  Nārada replied, “I am going to heaven”. “Then ask God when he will be merciful to me, when I shall attain freedom.”.  Further on Nārada saw another man. He was jumping about, singing dancing, and said, “O Nārada, where are you going?”. His voice and his gesture were wild. Nārada said, “ I am going to heaven”. “ Then ask when I shall be free?”. Nārada  went on. In the course of time he came again by the same road, and there was the man who had been meditating with the ant-hill round him. He said, “O Nārada, did you ask the Lord about me?”. “O Yes”. “What did he say”? “The Lord told me that you would attain freedom in four more births.” Then the man began to weep and wail, and said, “ I have meditated until an ant-hill has grown around me, and I have four more births yet!”. Nārada went to other man. “Did you ask my question?”.  “O Yes, Do you see this tamarind tree? I have to tell you that as many leaves are there on that tree, so many times you shall be born, and then you shall attain freedom”. The man began to dance of joy, and said, “I shall have freedom after such a short time!”.  A voice came, “My child, you will have freedom this minute.” That was the reward for his perseverance.  He was ready to work through all those births, nothing discouraged him. But the first man felt even four more births were too long. Only perseverance like that of the man who was willing to wait attains the highest result.

From the messages that of these anecdotes I conclude that Perseverance is patiently persisting.

Now the Question that was raised in my mind, Is perseverance good in the modern era:

I raised this question in my face book page and invited my friends to respond to my question: “Is perseverance good or bad”. The answers that I received I am quoting below.

“Perseverance is a very good quality. It depends on what you are applying on. It must be worthy enough to use this tool for some very good reasons like relationships, jobs, sports or projects. In fact perseverance is like a habit for some people who keep trying when others give up. Many people quit very easily when difficulty arises, but those who have the habit to pursue on their goal will never give up until they reach their target. This is good because at the end of the day you will definitely be benefited out of it.”

“Good to some extent, considering the time factor.”

“Perseverance is good as it ultimately pays.”

“Perseverance is really a good quality as it is an absolute required skill to face any obstacle towards achieving goals, perseverance helps us to challenge the challenges to attain something valuable,”

“Perseverance is good ... Kashtapadaama edhuvum kidaikaadhu. Kashtapadaama kedachu ennikum nilaikaadhu...”(meaning without hard work nothing can be achieved and anything got with out hard work does not stay.)

“According to me it is very important to attain the goal, determination is needed.“……..This person quotes the vedic knowledge to it. by saying thus “...according to literature of Tirumandram , Perseverance is important to attain the feet of lord .................”

“Good....Persistence / perseverance in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success it is the best quality of a leader. Histories say stories. According to me, it does not matter how slow it is as long as you do not stop, of course you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what and where you can raise from, how you can still come out of it.”

“this is what we are still learning despite our failures , its good to have a never give up attitude.”

“Binarical answer is hard to conclude. On macro aspect perseverance is highly appreciable but in situations of progressive thinking relaxation of perseverance is recommended. Again I strongly recommend that it depends with adaptation kind of pathway i.e. goodness or evilness.”

“Indubitably good! It's hard to perceive with any of my senses of a situation where perseverance is used in a negative context, unless you’re someone who has given up or has a never ending tryst with luck!”

“I strongly believe that there are three P's which a man should adhere to achieve his goal.Passion, perseverance and patience ...and this is the mantra behind every great souls success.Evolution of great achievement would have definitely started with a passion. Continued indefinitely with greater perseverance.. Which would have been followed by greatest patience.we are no one to judge if some others goal is good or bad.. But with perseverance one can relish in the ecstasy of fulfillment of their dreams.”

And finally an educationist, retired Registrar of a Premier institution, summed up as follows: “This is like knowing the secrets of nature. It is also like knowing about the process of evolution. But with a human brain and mind we will use our best judgment to preserve or allow decaying.”

Having received all these as I am preparing to the structure of this article I read in the Hindu today (21 January, 2014) how an engineer named L Rajagopal  got his dream job after 22 years of perseverance. In another six years he will retire and may not get pension!

Another friend of mine, Jai, had a different story to tell contrary to the above beliefs. Each time she succeeds in securing a job her 85 year old grandfather dissuades her from taking it up for some flimsy reason. He wants his granddaughter to work next door ….is it feasible.

She has wasted 5 years trying to convince her grandfather who is the Kartha of the house. Everything happens in her house only according to his discretion. She is 29 and feels that she is becoming too old to get a secured job.

Was she lacking in perseverance to achieve her goal. Did she not have a vision?  Now she has reconciled to the fact that despite persistence, Luck has to favor. She has stopped pursuing her search for a job.

This may be an isolated case but there may be many out there who would have given up because circumstances were not conducive or due to sudden chronic ill health or unforeseen accidents.

Yes, persistence is good, perseverance is a noble virtue.. it is a “process of evolution” …”indubitably good” ….adapting and relaxing at times…..process of learning …….required skill…. Ultimately pays …….BUT…….the time factor is important and LUCK should also favor in your direction.

It is understanding the “secrets of Nature” as we evolve into a person of wisdom. The immediate name that comes to my mind when I ponder further is John Foppe….. a living epitome of perseverance. “We are stronger than we think. We have emotional, spiritual and even physical resources at our disposal. We may get knocked down, but we don’t have to stay down”(SteveGoodier)

To people like Jai I wish to quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr….”“If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

And finally keep fanning the fire in your belly have faith and Never…Never give up in Praying for Luck to favor your persistence or perseverance!

You have no other choice but to persevere.

(I thank Latha Natarajan,Shifath, Seshadri Viswanathan, Venkatesh Sathya,Anto Jofel, Saranraj jeyachandran, Harish Venkat, Anuja Manoj,Shiva Vivek Reddy,Vivek Kumar, Babitha Kunnath and My dear Mentor: Dr. Amarchand Deepchand. Without their inputs I would not have got clarity on this topic.)