How to persevere?

Persevere. The word I am most likely mumbling to myself right now, laying down in my bed and going through all the pain imaginable, maybe even blind, that is if I am not dead, in which case I genuinely hope my boyfriend cancels this scheduled post all together, since it could, well, get a bit awkward. There were plenty of times in my life where perseverance was required, more challenging than the one I am currently going through at the time this post is finally hitting the virtual shelves; sure, there are people who had to persevere more, and more, and more, but this is not an auction and, as some supermarkets would put it, in this case every little helps.

But this time around I feel like it will be all about just that: how to persevere through everything I have brought onto myself, without anyone to blame and anything to change?

I know I have talked about things to do when there is nothing… left to do anymore before. But to persevere is so much more than to simply learn how to live with the lack of control. Perseverance, at least in my book, kicks in when the circumstances are not only independent from our actions, but are there to actively harm us in one way or another. Great pain, obviously, comes to mind straight away, but one needs to persevere through traumas, and watching people we love wither away, and mind-numbing boredom, and war, and a great many other things, not all of them so grand or self-centred.

And as a self-proclaimed mistress of perseverance, although I do hope I will never have to test my skills in such dire conditions that far too many people face – let me tell you how one can get it done… somehow.

But remember: when you try to persevere, you won’t win. There are no winners in the land where the only price is remaining whole, somehow.

Grow a stubborn bone

 You knew you couldn’t get another advice from me, didn’t you?

 You knew you couldn’t get another advice from me, didn’t you?

But the truth is that when the whole world is spitting in your face, when the universe just wants to see you shattered, when every single thing goes wrong and there is nothing left for you to fight for, the only solution is to simply get stubborn about it.

There is this conflicting idea a certain very important person in my life has about me – she cannot decide whether I’ll die young, because I’ll just get myself killed by saying something stupid or whether I will live forever because I am too stubborn to die. I’m betting all my money on the latter, but, I guess, once this bet gets resolved it won’t matter anyway.

Being stubborn comes with a terrible price tag – there are way too many things I have ruined and lost simply because I could not let go. But there are an equally many things that being stubborn has helped me to persevere through. All these days when I found myself on the edge of giving up, it was stubbornness that kept me from taking the final step. Not rational argumentations. Not love. Not the greater good.

The inability to admit that it was time to call it a day saved me more times than I would like to admit.

Accept help

Out of my many cat-like characteristics, the one that gets in my way most is just how much I hate accepting help.

I need to feel like the solution to the situation in question is my solution as much as I need to resolve it. Sure, there are some people that can help me whenever they want to (hint, hint, my boyfriend and my dad), but for me the act of being reliant on someone else is such a big leap of faith, and it is so intimate, and requires so much trust, and…

When I think of help I don’t think of people relieving me from my pain. Instead I think of being exposed and vulnerable, and the first thing that goes through my mind is just how many ways people could abuse their power or, even worse, how easy it would be to just get addicted to their support. I know it’s crazy, but I cannot change it.

But accepting other people’s help can be just enough help to let us persevere through the worst situations. And if not help, at least support, a kind word, a hug, a hot beverage, whatever they are offering. I know, it may sound like they pity us or we’re their charity work, but being someone’s charity work is still better than being all by yourself.

Do not pity yourself

Self-pity is nothing but destructive.

I think it was Stephen Fry who made long rant about it, so it may well be worth your listening to it too; but let me join his company. There is no single emotion that can ruin a person quite as much as feeling sorry for oneself. Nothing good can come from it. Nothing productive. Nothing changes. It is just an endless… pit of disappointment and stagnation.

If you want to persevere, you must not wallow in self-pity. You may be far from… getting over it, but your mind has the power to make you a victim, your mind will turn you into a victim forever and ever, with no way out of this state.

Escape in between

And finally – do not find yourself sitting down and waiting for a resolution.

I do this all the time, so I have, really, no right to judge. This is my domain, the land of in between. I am always in between something, waiting for something, counting the days down and writing them down in my diary. In between is so painful in itself – but in between while in great peril…

If you need to persevere, it may sound like a great idea, waiting for all of it to be over. This may even sound like the only idea. But we need to try to stay in the now anyway, to engage with our lives, to move forward somehow and, most importantly, not to just look up to this one magical day when everything will be fine.

What if it won’t? Are we truly ready to spend our lives dreaming of a world that simply cannot come?

I am not.

To persevere is so much more than to let the dream of a better future lead us forward. We need to carry on with our lives, too, make the best of a bad situation and learn to live regardless. Live. And one can only live in the here and now.

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