In life we often experience many periods of beginning anew, whether by choice or by chance. I remember how determined my mother was to get our whole family out of Vietnam back in the late 1970’s. Despite failure after failure, she never gave up. Even after being caught and getting thrown in jail for the attempts to escape, she still did not learned the lesson. Once released from jail, she was back at planning and organizing the next escape. She risked her life because she saw opportunities awaiting us and in her mind, failure was not an option. Looking back, if it wasn’t for my mother’s strength, determination, and her unwillingness to give up and quit, our family would have continued to live in poverty and work in the rice fields.
In my early years, I worked jobs I did not love so much and experienced my share of personal and professional failures. Back then, if I was having struggles, my solution was to run away from the problems or go away on travels to take my mind off of things. But every time that I came back, the challenges were still there; they did not magically disappear.
So I am learning now as an adult, finally, that I have to face my fears, confront my challenges, and resolve my issues, because no one else can for me. In all of these situations, if I or my family had quit, we would have never seen what positive outcomes awaited us down the road.
This poem reminds me that even when things seem bad or failure is inevitable, I must not quit. I hope you enjoy the short video clip from my recent business trip out west. The drive seemed long, lonely, and endless, but I just kept driving knowing that I would eventually arrive to my destination. Thank God I did not get a speeding ticket for driving over 100 miles per hour. 🙂
Don’t Quit
Author Unknown
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won if he’d stuck it out.
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow –
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out –
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are –
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit –
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.
