The Alter Ego of Persistence

"We all have been coded to believe that persistence is the key to success. It is indeed, but that is an incomplete lesson. I will tell you how... "

We know that when you want to achieve something, you have to be persistent about it. Keep putting in efforts to reach the goal. Keep following it passionately. Don't give up. 

At the same time, there might be some obstacles or incidents where you feel it is almost impossible to get any further. You see doors closing and paths ending. There is no light at the end of the tunnel and you feel it is a lost cause. 

This is where life teaches the lesson of surrender. 

As a child, in school and from elders we learn about perseverance but nobody teaches you about surrender. 

When you are going to be persistent about your mission, your ambition, about your goal or your dream, in that process there might be different incidents, different scenarios, different times, different experiences in life which will show you some failures.   

Sometimes these failures teach you the lesson of surrender which is so important to learn because while pursuing your goals, one aspect is to persistently follow what you want and the second aspect is at certain times you don't get what you want. 

This could be because at that point of time it's not good for you or you are not ready for that. It just doesn't work as per your life plan in that moment because there is a Universal power that is governing everything!  

So at those moments it's about surrendering, it's about having faith and it's about letting the universe take over.  

Some of you might know the feeling of being repeatedly haunted by the same issue, no matter how you try to ignore it, avoid it, or run away from it. Sometimes, it seems that we can get rid of something we don't want by simply pushing it away. Most of the time, the more we push away, the more we get pushed back. There are laws of physics and metaphysics that explain this phenomenon, which is often summed up in this pithy phrase:  

What you resist, persists.  

There is a Tibetan story of a monk who retreats to meditate in a cave only to be plagued by demons. He tries everything--chasing, fighting, hiding--to get the demons out of his cave, but the thing that finally works is surrender. He simply lets them have their way with him and only then do they disappear.  

We do control our lives, which means you control your actions but you don't control the external circumstances. That is what the combination of persistence and surrender is. 

Healthy persistence and healthy surrender, are first and foremost tied to healthy motive. Surrender can often be a way for casual confrontation with the self and others, and lead back to a renewed commitment to persevere. Some artists often speak about this phenomenon, they say that in letting go of a creative problem, the answer emerges! 

So you just surrender, you let it go, you accept it, take the lesson and step up all over again. 

It doesn't mean you don't deserve it. It doesn't mean you will not get it. It only means that at that given point of time, you just have to learn some other lesson so that you are prepared to get what you are meant to get.  

Every incident and every experience in your life teaches you something to make you what you are meant to become, to get what you are meant to get.   

Love, 

Smitaa 

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