The power of determination

REGARDING HENRY
By Henrylito D. Tacio

THE POWER OF DETERMINATION

While visiting his grandfather, my Filipino-American
friend Gregory Ira came across a book lying in the
desk. He noticed that there was one page – the only
page in the book – with the corner bent in.
“Presumably by my grandpa,” he wrote me.

Greg was curious so he read the page. It was a poem
entitled, ‘The Quitter,’ and was written by Robert
Service. The poem was very interesting so he sent it
to me. “I thought you might be interested in it,”
Greg pointed out in his e-mail.

The poem has three stanzas with eight lines. The
first stanza has this message: “Fight all you can,” as
the Code of a Man states. The second stanza urges:
“Buck up, do your damnedest, and fight. / It’s the
plugging away that will win you the day.”

The final stanza advices: “It’s easy to cry that
you’re beaten – and die; / It’s easy to crawfish and
crawl; / But to fight and to fight when hope’s out of
site -- / Why, that’s the best game of them all! /
And though you come out of each grueling bout, / All
broken and beaten and scarred, / Just have one more
try -- it’s dead easy to die, / It’s the
keeping-on-living that’s hard.”

Living in this world, indeed, is not easy. Life is
like a game and, as the above poem suggests, it should
be won. Life can also be compared to a war that must
be finished. “Life’s battles don’t always go / To the
stronger or faster man. / But soon or late the man who
wins, / Is the man who thinks he can,” reminds C.W.
Longenecker.

A quitter never wins and winner never quits, so goes a
saying. Benjamin Disraeli points out: “Through
perseverance many people win success out of what
seemed destined to be certain failure.” Or to quote
the words of Samuel Johnson, “Great works are
performed not by strength but by perseverance.”

If, for instance, you are a writer, keep on writing.
But don’t just write; do something, too. As Isaac
Asimov recommends, “You must keep sending work out;
you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its
head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and
again, while you’re working on another one. If you
have talent, you will receive some measure of success
-- but only if you persist.”

Author Jack Canfield explains: “One of the most
important qualities you will need to develop in order
to continue taking action is persistence. You must be
persistent in your disciplines and habits; perseverant
in the face of adversity, hardship and challenge; and
determined to achieve your dreams, no matter what.”

But life is not always a bed of roses. Canfield is
very much aware of this: “There will be many times
when you will want to quit, give up, and go back to
doing something else, but the one quality that will
guarantee your success is the willingness to stick
with it, to see it through to the end -- to refuse to
settle for anything less than your dream. The longer
you hang in there, the greater the chance that
something will happen in your favor. No matter how
hard it seems, the longer you persist, the more likely
your success will be.”

Many people fail in life because they believe in
adage: If you don’t succeed, try something else. Don
B. Owens, Jr. warns, “Success eludes those who follow
such advice. Virtually everyone has had dreams at one
time or another, specially the youth. The dreams that
have come true did so because people stuck to their
ambitions. They refused to be discouraged. They
never let disappointments get the upper hand.
Challenges only spurred them on to greater effort.”

Billionaire H. Ross Perot compared working on a
certain project to that of a football game. “Most
people give up just when they're about to achieve
success,” he says. “They quit on the one yard line.
They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot
from a winning touchdown.” Author Norman Vincent
Peale proposes: “If you want to get somewhere you have
to know where you want to go and how to get there.
Then never, never, never give up.”

Remember British Prime Minister Winston Churchill? It
took him three years to get through the eighth grade
because he had trouble learning his own language. But
what is interesting about Churchill is the fact that
years later, the Oxford University requested him to
deliver a commencement address. He accepted the offer
and as usual, he arrived for the event with his usual
props – a cigar, a cane, and a top hat.

With dignity, Churchill settled the crowd as he stood
confidently before his admirers. When it was time for
him to speak, he stood up and went to the platform.
Then, he removed the cigar and carefully placed his
top hat on the lectern. Looking directly at the eager
audience and with authority ringing in his voice, he
declared, “Never give up!”

Several seconds passed. He rose to his toes and
shouted again, “Never give up!” His words thundered
across the audience. There was profound silence as
Churchill then reached for his hat and cigar, steadied
himself with his cane, and left the platform. His
address was finished.

Never give up. So, now, what is holding you back to
pursue your ambition? Is it really your lack of
resources, as you constantly tell yourself, or is that
just a convenient excuse? ‘The Daily Motivator’
reminds, “Excuses are the sure and reliable building
blocks of failure. Whether you find yourself offering
them or accepting them, they are a definite warning
flag that you are veering off course.”

The world is full of examples of men facing great
obstacles in life but because of sheer determination,
they were able to get “out from the pit” and became
the “toast of the world.” No matter what the world
did to them, they have proven that you cannot put a
good man down:

Call him a slow learner, tab him as being retarded,
write him off as being uneducable, and you have an
Albert Einstein, Nobel laureate and perhaps the most
well-known scientist of the 20th century.

Raise him in an abject poverty, make him struggle
through political defeat after defeat, let him lose
the love of his life, and you have an Abraham Lincoln,
the 16th president of the United States and one of the
great men of history.

Strike him down with infantile paralysis, take away
his legs, make him dependent utterly on others, and he
becomes a Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose
unprecedented election to four terms as American
president will probably never be repeated.

Stab him with rheumatic pains until for years he
cannot sleep without drugs and you have Charles
Proteus Steinmetz, a German-American electrical
engineer and inventor.

Have him or her born black in a society which is
filled with racial discrimination, and you have a
Booker T. Washington, a Harriet Tubman, a Marian
Anderson, a George Washington Carver, a Martin Luther
King Jr., or a Nelson Mandela.

Make him a second fiddler in an obscure South American
orchestra and you have an Arturo Toscanini, an Italian
conductor who brought great music to the attention of
thousands of new listeners during a career that
spanned nearly 70 years.

Author Canfield was right when he said, “Adversity is
what gives you the opportunity to develop your inner
resources of character and courage. Adversity is a
great teacher. It will test you and make you stronger.
But you have to hang in there and not give up!”

That is what the power of determination is all about.
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