Lesson 12: Never give up. Never think life is not worth
living. I don't care how hard it gets. An old proverb
reminds: "When you get to your wit's end, remember that God lives
there." Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote that when you get into a
"tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you
could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the
place and time that the tide will turn." Hang in with life.
Hand in for what you believe is right even if every other soul is going a
different way. Don't give in to cynicism or despair or dismiss as
unsolvable the great challenges of peace or nuclear survival, racial division,
poverty, and environmental devastation. Sissela Bok, in her Alva
Myrdal: A Life, quotes the Nobel Peace laureate: "I know
only two things for certain. One is that we gain nothing by walking
around the difficulties and merely indulging in wishful thinking. The
other is that there is always something one can do oneself. In the most
modest form, this means: to study, to try to sort out different
proposals, and weigh the effect of proposed solutions--even if they are only
partial solutions. Otherwise there would be nothing left but to give
up. And it is not worthy of human beings to give up. . . . The greatness
of being human. . . lies in not giving up, in not accepting one's own
limitations." A little saying I picked up in a convent I visit
sometimes echoes her feelings: "God never meant to make life easy,
he meant to make men and women great"--like Alva Myrdal.
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Lesson
13: Be confident that you can make a
difference. Don't get overwhelmed. Sometimes
when I get frantic about all I have to do and spin my
wheels, I try to recall Carlyle's advice: "Our
main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance,
but to do what lies clearly at hand." Try to
take each day and each task as they come, breaking them
down into manageable pieces for action while struggling to
see the whole. And don't think you have to
"win" immediately or even at all to make a
difference.
In The Irony of American History, Reinhold Niebuhr
said: "Nothing that is worth doing can be
achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by
hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good
makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do,
however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we
are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as
virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is
from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by
the final favor of love which is forgiveness."
Remember that sometimes it's important to lose for things
that matter and that many fruits of your labor will not
become manifest for many, many years.
And do not think that you have to make big waves in order
to contribute. My role model, Sojourner Truth, slave
woman, could neither read nor write but could not stand
slavery and second-class treatment of women. One day
during an anti-slavery speech she was heckled by an old
man. "Old woman, do you think that your talk
about slavery does any good? Why I don't care any
more for your talk than I do for the bite of a
flea." "Perhaps not, but the Lord willing,
I'll keep you scratching," she replied.
A lot of people think they have to be big dogs to make a
difference. That's not true. You just need to
be a flea for justice bent on building a more decent home
life, neighborhood, work place, and country. Enough
committed fleas biting strategically can make even the
biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest
nation. . . .
Be a flea for justice wherever you are and in whatever
career you choose in life and help transform your country
by biting political and business leaders until they
respond.
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more on
perseverance
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