The Drive to Keep Going

You are probably familiar with the story of a race between a certain turtle and a certain rabbit. Basically, for those unfamiliar, the rabbit takes for granted the turtle's slow speed and decides it does not need to put in the slightest effort. The rabbit rests, continuously thinking, "I have time, the turtle is very slow." Meanwhile, however, the turtle has been working hard and doesn't allow knowledge of the rabbit's faster speed to discourage it. In the end, the turtle wins the race because it did not, like the rabbit, look to its opponent and determine strategy based upon the competition's abilities, or disabilities. In the end, slow and steady won the race against fast but careless.

August has come, which means September is near, which means this is going to start actually feeling real... all of it. The senior year, the college applications, and most pressingly, this project. Don't get me wrong, my project has never escaped my mind and it has always felt real in the sense that once the school year begins, I will be on a fast-track train to my final symposium. Committee meetings will begin to take shape, a timeline will be set, along with the pressures that come with it, and my work will be - extremely - cut out for me (in a very bigly kind of way).

I spent the past three weeks in Egypt, visiting my overwhelmingly large and generally crazy extended family. For that reason, since I wasn't in the lab or nursing home or any of the usual activities, I chose to utilize this time for tackling some of the more "untouchable" ideas and thoughts in my journals. Although I am back from my trip, please allow me one more "untouchable" journal as we already have the theme going. If that doesn't jive with you, my apologies, we'll be getting back to the nerdy stuff very soon, promise.

So the item I want to discuss this time around is stamina as it relates to speed, as discussed in the proverbial story that I opened this journal with. I'm not sure I can identify myself as slow AND steady. I'm definitely slow, in my learning process, in making decisions, in understanding jokes, etc. But I don't think I can just as confidently claim that I am also steady. I believe there were quite a few points in the past two years when you could define my learning and project work as being in similitude to a roller coaster - definitely not steady. Contrarily though, I know I'm nowhere near being fast - which is to also say I know myself well enough that I probably won't trick myself into being careless with fast speed, because well, I do not possess such a characteristic. At the same time though, it would be rather foolish and self-deceiving of me to think that the slow, without the steady, can ever be a profitable thing. Thus, one of my goals this year is to find a steadiness that works for me. I think this also has something to do with both levels of stamina and a certain sense of being grounded.

Let's talk about stamina first. In any endeavor, the only way one can remain steadfast in their efforts is through stamina, officially defined as, "the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort." Personally defined as simply; the drive to keep going. I'd really like to think that there is no limit to our human stamina in doing something that matters to us. But unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case. In the end, exhaustion always wins out. In the past, I've always gotten a little bit confused here. If stamina is unable to continuously sustain us, then is it even possible to be steady? But of course, I was understanding the entire concept incorrectly. You see, steady doesn't just mean to be consistent, it means to be consistently moderate and balanced and essentially, just the opposite of any extreme behavior. Taking regular rest along the way so that you don't totally run out of steam and lose all that you've previously worked for. The way to achieve this, I think circles us back to that quality of being grounded.

In order to strike that steadiness, I think we can all agree that one must be sane, sensible, and thinking logically. And I think that's what being grounded would offer. We must be grounded in the fact of our human limitations, and our understanding that moderation is necessary in all things. When stamina begins to run out, when we begin to "burn out," we, well at least I, may begin to see things through clouded vision, with a veil of ambition hiding reality from us. That's also when our thinking gets a little fuzzy - I kind of go insane, but that's just me. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that being grounded would be nice because the facts and non-negotiables we ground ourselves upon can knock some sense into us when we aren't exactly thinking correctly.

So I guess my question still remains, where or how do I discover a steadiness that helps me grow? How can I create a method that makes me faster but not cocky, a method that fosters my curiosity but doesn't trick me into recklessly dealing with my health and mental capacity, and finally, a method that doesn't allow me to forget why I love my project and this class. It sounds too balanced to be me, I know. But what if it is actually possible? I'm sure there's a lot of trial and error involved here. You know how Thomas Edison said "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." I think I spent a large portion of last year exploring those 10,000 ways that don't work. I hope I can spend this year finding the one way that does work.