Perseverance: Success Mantra

Perseverance is a lowly virtue whereby mediocrity can achieve a glorious success.
---Ambrose Bierce

Romesh tried his hands at starting his transport business that failed ultimately. After re-evaluating his experience, he opened another transport business. Romesh has now chain of transport agencies across the country.

The moral of the anecdote is that one should continue with the vocation one is pursuing, and should not stop trying or making conscious efforts towards one’s pursuit. If you keep trying diligently, dedicatedly, and doggedly you are sure to achieve your goal against all vicissitudes. One never fails in one’s first attempt, and if one keeps trying. As a matter of fact, failure occurs when we quit or stop trying. Do you know what Romesh has which most of us don’t have. Romesh has perseverance – the determination to continue. According to the dictionary, perseverance is an act of persisting in a state, enterprise or undertaking in spite of counter influences, opposition or discouragement.

As it has always been, perseverance is the basic ingredient for success. After several attempts to make the electric light bulb, Thomas Edison said, “I haven’t failed, I’ve identified 10,000 ways that it doesn’t work.” There is an endless list of other great achievers, who found that success inevitably arrives for every person who perseveres.

You may find it difficult to acquire a job of your choice; or, you may find it difficult to succeeding at ventures that present volumes of difficulties. But it is part of the learning process. At the end of the day, people who persevere become successful. Those who earnestly learn from the mistakes committed eventually become successful.

Do you have the instinct to persevere? Or, do you quit or let it go after meeting rejection or difficulties? First, let’s have a quick test to evaluate your Perseverance Quotient. Rate yourself on a scale of one to three, one being low and three being high, on each of the following:

I believe in myself.
I have a fixed notion.
I deal with my limitations.
I pull through from disappointments.
I have the stamina to persist.
I am flexible enough and quickly get adapted to change.
I concentrate and complete assignments at hand.
My goals are consistent with my purpose and values.

Get a total of your scores. The higher your score, the more perseverant you are.


Now, somewhere you feel that you should have more perseverance than what you have at present. You want to be more persistent with your efforts. Of course, you need to work on it to move further in life. You need to imbibe more of perseverance within you to get success. Given are the rules to enhance perseverance within:

Identify your goal. Base it on your mission/passion, needs and abilities. You need to understand why you want your goal and how you and others will benefit.

Clarify your goal in the present. To clarify your goal , you need to write desired outcomes, what you want to accomplish from your targeted aim . In addition, you need to be detailed, specific, and positive.


Be determined to achieve. It is also essential to have the vigour to achieve your purpose, and you have to have determination to achieve it. To achieve your objective, you should outline strategies and timeline . In addition, you must be aware of your resources that can help you attain your ambition, such as people, associations and the Internet.


Develop support systems. You should meet regularly with positive, encouraging people who support your objective and celebrate your achievements. Select other sources of positive reinforcement such as books or tapes with uplifting themes.

Have productive attitudes and behaviors. Don’t dwell in the past, worry about what might happen or view yourself as a victim. Never succumb to negative thoughts.

Remain Optimist. Reinforce the positive in yourself and others. Expect good things. Watch self-talk. Replace negative thoughts or statements with positive ones. Acknowledge your accomplishments. Judge your accomplishments against personal standards of self-improvements. Live in the present.

Have the courage of your convictions. Don’t change for others or compare yourself with others. Develop the will to risk. Don’t worry about what might happen. Don’t fear mistakes and worst. View mistakes as opportunities to grow. Decide whether you could live with the worst or take steps to reduce the chance of it happening.

Reduce negative outcomes. For example, meet successful people who have achieved similar goals. Learn from their mistakes.

Keep a healthy lifestyle. Do care for you mind, body, emotions and spirit. Schedule quiet times to think and reassess. Practise some sort of stress relievers such as deep breathing, exercise, meditation. Get sufficient sleep, eat healthy. Take time for fun and friends.

So, persist with these activities and be focused. Keep in mind that with every “no” of defeat you’re closer to a “yes” of success. If you learn from set-backs and stay determined, success will follow. Every day, at regular intervals, ask yourself whether your activities are helping you attain you’re the ambition. Believe you’ll attain your goal. Just persevere, you can achieve the extraordinary.

The Everlasting Kiss

My darling, so passionate about me; your love
For me never fade.
The only truth of our long-lasting bond
Has to stay.

I have made a tryst with you
One day, I’ll fall for you.
Leaving behind my joy & pain,
My agony & ecstasy, my losses & gains.

No temptation could be bigger than to embrace your heaving bosom.
Who has not been mesmerized by your bewitching charm?
Nobody has the courage to breach your trust and faith.

Tell me-
How could I nerve to refuse the kiss of death?

Why do I write?

Why do I write? Why do I want to write?
Perhaps, I have the impulse to guide
Probably, I don’t have other know-how to survive
But most of the time, I feel the urge to write

I pen the emotion; I make a living out of emotions
I’ve developed an obsessive compulsion
Of observing around me many a thing and phenomenon

Sometimes I recollect, sometimes I let me fly
High and high in the imagination’s sky,
A white broad sheet of paper becomes my canvas to paint
On which pent-up frustrations, sometimes, do defecate
One day, I cast gloom
Other day, I predict bloom

All said and done, I write to defy the fear of mortality
I suffer too, from the pang of immortality

Nostalgia

At the twilight zone of my life
Lived enough, time is just passing by
I see a child lying-down on his mother’s lap
Listening to her crooning with affectionate tap
On his temple, while the dusty smell of raining outside
Sneaking into the nook and cranny of the room inside

The child tugging at her sari’s free end
To let him free to be danced and drenched
In the rain. The bout of nostalgia left me enervated
The child within wept uncontrollably for his mother, long dead

Today, I am father of a grown-up son
In the twilight zone, still searching in him my mother’s lost son

The dirge of mortals

We are plain mortals doomed to be dead
Mortals are forgotten for immortals,
Who keep immortals alive to be cherished by Generation Next
We, the mortals who remember immortals.

Immortality thrives on mortality
Frailties of mortals make you stand apart
Captivated, inspired, enthralled by the lotus’ beauty,
It is the mud, dirt and mirth; adds juice to its birth
Truth prevails at the expense of lies
If there is no black (wrong), how to validate the white (right)

We die unsung to let your fame fly.
We, dwarf, giving every meaning to your height.
Never forget the simple reality
You blossom and bloom out of us.
Immortality piggybacks on mortality
Don’t mitigate our dearth with any fuss