Perseverance

“Our greatest strength is not the ability to keep ourselves from falling, but the ability to rise every time we fall.”

I had a framed poster of that saying in my room when I was doing my degree… so don’t think I can actually come up with such a meaningful quote… my quotes, or as I would like to call them, ‘Syamosophy’, don’t make much sense. I’ll look them up and post it up on the blog… can’t remember them now… (I guess it never caught on until the author doesn’t remember it…)

What was I talking about? Sorry, short attention span…

Oh yes, perseverance… we, as members of the human race have the ability to endure extreme hardship and rise above it. Of course, I can rattle off a few examples from history, but you guys won’t really be able to relate to it… I would give my own personal ‘rebirth of the phoenix’ moment, but I don’t really consider myself as someone who’s really gone through a lot of hardship… what can I say, I’ve had a pampered life…

So I’ll give the most obvious example at this moment, which would be the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan. It’s got to be one of the worst natural disasters in the last few years… the last time it was this bad was probably during the last tsunami.

You would expect the people there to be totally down… give up… considering that a lot of them have lost everything.

I’ve got a few friends and colleagues there. Thank goodness they are all ok. They are not only ok, but in fact, they seem a bit cheerful! One friend was happily updating her facebook status, telling everybody not to worry about her. She even updates us on the rolling blackouts without actually complaining about it.

It takes a lot to remain positive even though you are at probably the lowest point of your life. Remaining positive is one thing, but to pull yourself out of that lowest point takes more than most people are willing to do.

I would like to be considered one of those people that persevere, but I’ve yet to hit rock bottom (and I don’t want to wish it upon myself either). Having a good life means you’ll never really know how you’ll react to a really bad situation. But I do hope that if things do get bad, then I’ll have the ability to be like my friend in Japan, and rebuild everything that I’ve lost…

Our greatest strength is not the ability to keep ourselves from falling, but the ability to make sure nobody saw us fall… it’s just embarrassing – Syamosophy

See, told you my quotes aren’t meaningful…