perseverance

In an earlier episode of this series on attitudes, I talked about patience. And in this episode, I'm going to talk about a related attitude, and that is perseverance.

Perseverance requires patience, but it's more than just patience. It implies that we are making a concerted effort over a long period of time. Even when we hit obstacles, we stay at it, we don't just give up. So perseverance has a lot to do with endurance, the ability to endure hardships.

There will be periods on our spiritual journey, when things are going smoothly, when we feel we are making progress, when our efforts are paying dividends, and we are basically feeling happy with the way things are going. But there will be other periods, for sure, which will be much more challenging. We might feel that nothing is really working for us. We might feel completely stuck. We might feel that we're not getting anywhere. A sort of hopelessness can set in, a despair. And during these times, we need a great deal of perseverance to keep going, despite these negative thoughts coming up.

And there will be other times when we are just simply distracted by other things in life. Perhaps we meet a new lover or get a new job. Something changes and all our energy and focus is taken away from our spiritual endeavour, on to more mundane things. And during these periods, too, we need a certain perseverance, dedication, to keep practising our spiritual discipline.

And there may be times when we really want to just give up the whole thing. During these dark periods, we need a strong willpower. We need this perseverance, this attitude of perseverance, to keep going regardless. It's a sort of dedication to the journey.

And this gives us a hint as to how to develop this attitude of perseverance if we feel it's not strong enough. One way is to reaffirm for ourself the importance of the spiritual side of life, to remind ourself that this is really the only way to find truly deep, lasting fulfilment and contentment. With this in our mind, we can make a commitment to ourself or reaffirm a previous commitment to keep going with the spiritual work and not give up. And yes, it probably will take years. It's really a lifetime endeavour.

That's the level of perseverance we need. And it comes from this clear dedication to oneself, which in turn comes from seeing that it's the only hope we have, that all the material things in life, in the end, turn to ash. They can provide a moment or two of joy, pleasure, but they are not going to last long. It doesn't matter what – new job, new house, new relationship – the honeymoon will soon be over.

So try to develop this perseverance for the spiritual discipline, by contemplating how important our spirituality is.