I'm pretty sure tenacity is the quality people need in order to succeed in anything in life. It helps to be bright, yes. It helps to be quick witted and personable and all of those things. But tenacity. Tenacity will get you anywhere and everywhere.
I'm tenacious when it comes to certain things. I was tenacious in working towards having children, going through a whole lot of horrendous fertility treatments to get them. And definitely worth it. And I think I've worked tenaciously to get my books published. But tenacity as an overall quality -- no, I don't have that, not so much. I'm the woman you see reading in the corner, or talking to a friend at lunch. I'm the one who will always opt for an extra hour of sleep over pretty much anything else.
My daughter, though, she is the tenacious one. She is tenacious in everything she does, from school work to performing in musicals to playing her cello to reading. She's tenacious in her friendships and in who she chooses to be her friends in the first place. She's tenacious in her conversation and in learning and in thinking. Everything she does, everything, is about tenacity.
Her tenacity doesn't always get her what she wants. She has never been the star of the musical. She is not a straight A student. But it's the way she approaches life that makes me convinced she will be the one who gets it all in the end. Because what she says she wants to do, she finds a way to do. And when she decides to do it, she does it until she no longer can. She doesn't stop in the middle. She doesn't stop when someone else gets the better part or the better grade or a teacher (or, um, her mother) tells her she can't. She just does it.
So what do you think is the most important quality in order to be successful in life? I would love to hear.
No comments:
Post a Comment