I am not sure about you but it feels like I’ve had a life time of adversity and while not to bore you with details it feels like either The Devil or may be more appropriately God dumped a huge scorching serving of responsibility on my shoulders from a young age for my generation.
Without being overly detailed, for my age group (or at least according to my Great Aunt) I’ve experienced more problems than someone most others. By my 20th birthday
Without going into too much detail, to date I have (according to my elderly Great Aunt) seen and experience more hardships than a person of my age should have. By the age of 6 I experienced the death of a parent. Just before the age of 14 I started down the road of depression and Catholic Guilt when my oldest maternal Great Aunt passed away unexpectedly and I felt guilt over not keeping my promise to visit her more often especially since she lived down the hill. By the time of my grandmother’s passing exactly 10 years ago, I had started to understand the sandy foundations of my family financial house, becoming the primary person to supply food for a house of four on a grocery store paycheck, experiencing first hand the daily care of an elderly (grand)parent and more.
To TDLR; it, before the age of 30 I have experienced first hand, collection, repossession, bankruptcy, death, foreclosure, feeding a family of 3-4 on a shoestring budget, political negotiations with family members (for a lack of a better term), anxiety, depression, impostor syndrome, and “gaslighting”. At times it feels like repeatedly being hit by a baseballs in a batting cage.
The secret to my success, perseverance.
What is perseverance? Perseverance is when Muhammad Ali said “I hated every minute of training, but I said ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
Perseverance at the very basic level is just surviving and getting through the rough waters of the day until you can get home at night and rest. Perseverance is also navigating through muddy waters and difficulties to reach a worthy goal. In the case of Mr. Ali, his goal was becoming a champion and he knew to achieve that he had to do something he really hated, training. Now you’re goal doesn’t have to be becoming the world heavy weight champion, it can be something a simple as passing to the next grade, or attaining a college degree.