“Kites rise highest against the wind – not with it!” Winston Churchill
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” Benjamin Franklin
Introduction: On January 1, LinkedIn announced that I had a work anniversary of 32 years at The University North Carolina at Chapel Hill ( if you include my postdoc at UNC-CH, this is a grand total of 36 years). My dear friend Lisa Cox (she is a graduate of The University North Carolina at Chapel Hill) wrote to congratulate me and said the following: “Grateful for your commitment to the University and to your students. Your steadfast determination is to be commended.” Her use of the words ‘steadfast determination’ got me thinking about the word persistent (steadfast is a synonym for persistent) and this thinking led to the current blog post.
Persistence in the backdrop of staying hopeful: I truly admire and enjoy reading works by Dr. Brené Brown. Her insight, research/writing and her thoughtful commentary on many different topics are truly remarkable. She has studied hope and when you have Parkinson’s hope is a very important word to embrace. One of her stories on hope, mixed with persistence, deals with the work of C. R. Snyder, at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. Embracing and expanding upon this work, “hope is a thought process; hope happens when (1) We have the ability to set realistic goals (I know where I want to go); (2) We are able to figure out how to achieve those goals, including the ability to stay flexible and develop alternative routes (I know how to get there, I’m persistent, and I can tolerate disappointment and try again); and (3) We believe in ourselves (I can do this!).” To read in-depth this presentation entitled “Learning to Hope–Brené Brown”, click here. And again the word ‘persistent’ stood out while reading this document.
Persistence and Parkinson’s:Persistence (per·sist·ence /pərˈsistəns/ noun) is defined as (1) firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition, and (2) the continued or prolonged existence of something. If you’re going to thrive in the presence of Parkinson’s, you will definitely need persistence because you will be locked in a lifelong battle to resist its presence every minute of every day. Besides being hopeful and positive, having persistence will help enable your daily journey with Parkinson’s. In other words, persistence is not giving up without trying, searching out and exploring new pathways for your life, and it certainly demands steadfast determination.
64* Quotes on Persistence to Help You Stay Positive and Hopeful, and to Keep You Exercising: (*Why 64? Because I’m 64 years old) I started with >100 quotes and ended up with this list; they are arranged alphabetically by the author’s first name. [This is the third time I’ve written about persistence in the presence of Parkinson’s; to read the first blog post “Persistence and Parkinson’s” click here, and to read the most recent blog post “Chapter 7: A Parkinson’s Reading Companion on Persistence” click here.] May these quotes about persistence bolster your daily dealing with this dastardly disorder named Parkinson’s.
- “I do the very best I know how, the very best I can and I mean to keep doing so until the end.” Abraham Lincoln
- “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Albert Einstein
- “The best view comes after the hardest climb.” Anonymous/Unknown
- “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide n.ot to surrender, that is strength.” Arnold Schwarzenegger
- “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle
- “Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out.” Art Linkletter
- “Better is possible. It does not take genius. It takes diligence. It takes moral clarity. It takes ingenuity. And above all, it takes a willingness to try.” Atul Gawande
- “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” Babe Ruth
- “History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeat.” C. Forbes
- “As long as there’s breath in You–Persist!” Bernard Kelvin Clive
- “No great achievement is possible without persistent work.” Bertrand Russell
- “My greatest point is my persistence. I never give up in a match. However down I am, I fight until the last ball. My list of matches shows that I have turned a great many so-called irretrievable defeats into victories.” Bjorn Borg
- “In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins – not through strength, but through persistence.” Buddha
- “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” Calvin Coolidge
- “Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.” Colin Powell
- “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” Confucius
- “Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.” Earl Nightingale
- “A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.”Elbert Hubbard
- “If you are doing all you can to the fullest of your ability as well as you can, there is nothing else that is asked of a soul.” Gary Zukav
- ”Morale is the state of mind. It is steadfastness and courage and hope. It is confidence and zeal and loyalty. It is elan, esprit de corps and determination.” George C. Marshall
- “You go on. You set one foot in front of the other, and if a thin voice cries out, somewhere behind you, you pretend not to hear, and keep going.” Geraldine Brooks
- “Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.” Hal Borland
- “Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- “The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is, that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won’t.” Henry Ward Beecher
- “When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself.” Isak Dinesen
- “Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” Jacob A. Riis
- “The most essential factor is persistence–the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.” James Whitcomb Riley
- ”We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.” Jesse Owens
- “This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- “Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.” John Quincy Adams
- “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” Julie Andrews
- “If you wish to be out front, then act as if you were behind.” Lao Tzu
- “You aren’t going to find anybody that’s going to be successful without making a sacrifice and without perseverance.“ Lou Holtz
- “Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity.” Louis Pasteur
- “Full effort is full victory.” Mahatma Gandhi
- “You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.” Marina Wright Edelman
- “If you can’t fly, then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.” Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering I will try again tomorrow.” Mary Anne Radmacher
- “Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.” Maya Angelou
- “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” Maya Angelou
- “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan
- “Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway.” Mother Theresa
- “Patience, persistence, and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” Napoleon Hill
- “It always seems impossible until it is done.” Nelson Mandela
- “I will persist until I succeed. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult. I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking.” Og Mandino
- “Enter every activity without giving mental recognition to the possibility of defeat. Concentrate on your strengths, instead of your weaknesses… on your powers, instead of your problems.” Paul J. Meyer
- “He conquers who endures.” Persius
- “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “We are human. We are not perfect. We are alive. We try things. We make mistakes. We stumble. We fall. We get hurt. We rise again. We try again. We keep learning. We keep growing. And we are thankful for this priceless opportunity called life.” Ritu Ghatourey
- “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” Robert Collier
- “The best way out is always through.” Robert Frost
- “Your hardest times often lead to the greatest moments of your life. Keep going. Tough situations build strong people in the end.” Roy Bennett
- “There are two ways of attaining an important end, force and perseverance; the silent power of the latter grows irresistible with time.” Sophie Swetchine
- “To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. “I will drink the ocean,” says the persevering soul; “at my will mountains will crumble up.” Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal.” Swami Vivekananda
- “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to always try just one more time.” Thomas Edison
- “Permanence, perseverance, and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.” Thomas Carlyle
- “With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.” Thomas Foxwell Buxton
- “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” Thomas Jefferson
- “We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we are.” Tobias Wolff
- “I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed: and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I fail and keep trying.” Tom Hopkins
- “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” Vince Lombardi
- “Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.” William James
- “Continuous effort–not strength or intelligence–is the key to unlocking our potential.” Winston Churchill
- “If you’re going through hell, keep going. Winston Churchill
Please stay focused on taking the best care of you by working well with your family and support team, be honest with your movement disorder Neurologist, get plenty of exercise and try to sleep well. You hold the key to unlock the plan to manage your Parkinson’s.
“Strength is found in each of us. For those of us with Parkinson’s, we use our personal strengths of character to bolster our hope, courage, mindfulness/contentment/gratitude, determination, and the will to survive. Stay strong. Stay hopeful. Stay educated. Stay determined. Stay persistent. Stay courageous. Stay positive. Stay wholehearted. Stay mindful. Stay happy. Stay you.” Frank C. Church
Cover Photo credit: http://www.wallpaperup.com/202084/morning_ice_sunrise_lake_snow_forest_winter_reflection.html
Journey with Parkinson's 
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