Determination!

Determination!                  

By John W. Vander Velden

 

There are some advantages to age.  Though some might disagree with what I consider positives.  I feel those of us that have had “more water flow over the dam than remains in the lake”, my own quote, No Turning Back, can, having lived, look back.  And looking back, if we do so honestly, learn something.

One of the important lessons I have learned is, that nothing of value is accomplished without effort.  Certainly there are those things that seem to fall into our lap, but by and large it takes sweat, it takes effort, it takes determination.

I write…no surprise there…I mean this blogpost is written.  I enjoy writing.  The time and effort I give to the creation of “new worlds and people” is a joy.  But those that know “writing” understand that the first draft is the easy part.  Once the concept has been laid out, the thousands and thousands of words, the building blocks of a story, has first been assembled, the work really begins.  Work, like the four letter word it is.  Not that every aspect of “revising” is a burdenous task, but much of it is hard work.  But I had a choice…leave my novel on the shelf, or make it better…force it to be better…chew it up spit and it out better!  That like so many of the things I have done all the years of my life it required determination.

Years ago I visited an uncle in a rehabilitation hospital.  The nurses at the station told me that my uncle was stubborn.  I told the ladies there, they did not know the man.  For if they knew how he had left everything behind, parents, home, and country.  How he came to the United States with a wife and two small children and little else.  How he had taken nothing and made it something, to become a man of property.  That with his faith and courage but most of all with determination he had succeeded where thousands had failed.  No some might call my uncle stubborn...and perhaps he was, but I knew he was determined. 

So as I began this post, looking back I see that every little thing I have done, every little accomplishment, each goal reached, demanded…determination.  That determination was the only thing that was common to every one of those events.  That determination…everyday dogged determination got me through when the fields were too wet…when they sky turned off its faucet and the land became dust…when the extreme cold caused the feeders, waterers, the everything to quit working, when the cow needed to be flipped, or when a calf had to be pushed back into its mother so its legs could be rearranged to make its birth possible.  That determination was need each and every day.

What have I learned?  That if something is worth doing, then it takes effort…but more…it takes determination.

(489 Words)    2-18-2016