Onebendre: Quotes

Showing posts with label Quotes. Show all posts

Never Give Up

    If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person. It's how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.

     Abraham Lincoln Didn't Quit. Probably the greatest example of persistence is Abraham Lincoln. If you want to learn about somebody who didn't quit, look no further. Born into poverty, Lincoln was faced with defeat throughout his life. He lost eight elections, twice failed in business and suffered a nervous breakdown. He could have quit many times - but he didn't and because he didn't quit, he became one of the greatest presidents in the history of our country.

Lincoln was a champion and he never gave up. Here is a sketch of Lincoln's road to the White House:

1816 His family was forced out of their home. He had to work to support them.
1818 His mother died.
1831 Failed in business.
1832 Ran for state legislature - lost.
l832 Also lost his job - wanted to go to law school but couldn't get in.
1833 Borrowed some money from a friend to begin a business and by the end of the year he was bankrupt. He spent the next 17 years of his life paying off this debt.
1834 Ran for state legislature again - won.
1835 Was engaged to be married, sweetheart died and his heart was broken.
1836 Had a total nervous breakdown and was in bed for six months.
1838 Sought to become speaker of the state legislature - defeated.
1840 Sought to become elector - defeated.
1843 Ran for Congress - lost.
1846 Ran for Congress again - this time he won - went to Washington and did a good job.
1848 Ran for re-election to Congress - lost.
1849 Sought the job of land officer in his home state - rejected.
1854 Ran for Senate of the United States - lost.
1856 Sought the Vice-Presidential nomination at his party's national convention - get less than 100 votes.
1858 Ran for U.S. Senate again - again he lost.

1860 Elected president of the United States.

Darkness comes. In the middle of it, the future looks blank. The temptation to quit is huge. Don't. You are in good company... You will argue with yourself that there is no way forward. But with God, nothing is impossible. He has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than you can conceive. Wait. Pray without ceasing. Hope.

Every exit is an entry to somewhere else. The end of anything is the beginning of another thing; moreover, every finish line is the beginning of a new race. As I see it, every issue of life is a part of a continuous process. And if this is the case, it simply means that even your own seemed failures, disappointments, and what you have, is not the end of your life. It also implies that experiencing any of the above instances shouldn't weigh you down, rather, you are expected to forge ahead of them regardless of how downcast/frustrated you may think you are presently.

To me, this quote is all about the circle of life, and the circular nature of our lives. Things start, things end. The end of one thing leads to the beginning of another. This quote states it from the opposite view point, in which the beginning of a new thing comes from the completion of the prior thing.

      While we like to think of ourselves as more sophisticated, this simple way of looking at things still has some usefulness. Especially as a time limited person, I find it hard to start something new until I have finished with something else first. Does that make a little more sense?

   I’m not talking about what to do with the wood working project after all the sanding is completed. While that may also be finishing, I’m talking more about being done with something. Taking a project all the way to the conclusion. Finished.
   It’s easy to start a project. Or a relationship. Or a painting. Or a drawing. Or just about anything else. Finishing tends to be quite a bit more difficult. Some of it is all the steps between starting and finishing. But usually, at least for me, it’s the interest, or the waning thereof.
When one project ends, there’s a bit of celebration and enthusiasm generated by the successful finishing of it. That tends to lead to a bit of optimism in starting the next project. With time, the glow fades, and the long hard slog begins, as you march towards the completion. Or you give up, which is a different kind of finished.

Where can I apply this in my life?
In my youth, I was a starter, not a finisher. I must have had hundreds of projects I started for every project I finished. Only the shortest or most interesting ever were finished. Most of those projects were abandoned. I gave up a lot, finding the planning to be very interesting and the doing a bit dry and boring. I gave up far too often, and far too easily. However, each time a project was finished, whether by completion or by abandonment, it made room to start something else.

Which brings us back to the quote. While the end of some things are trivial, the end of other things are a bit more emotional, even painful. However, each ending brings about a new beginning. Even something as painful as the death of a parent brings the beginning of the next phase of your life.
As everything that is born eventually dies, so everything that is begun eventually is ended. There is an ebb and flow to life, and even to the things that are not alive. Some occur on scales so fast that they are almost impossible to measure, while others occur on scales so slow, they have yet to complete.

Think of your dating history. While some of you may have had multiple friends going at the same time, most of us were lucky to have one. When one relationship ended, it made room for the beginning of the next. My point is that life changes, things begin, then eventually end. Look into your life for similar changes, similar cycles. Often times, these events are looked at as lines, not circles.

While I’m sure one could try, and probably easily find, exceptions to this quote, that’s not really the point. The point was to get you to look at your life from a slightly different point of view, even if only for a moment. And now this post is done. What new beginning awaits?