Endurance and Single minded

“Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.” Buddha
We all want to be successful in something, and we look on successful people for clues of who to make it (in whatever area we strive to succeed). As we read, watch or listen to people who “made it big”, it is often that we hear them say that endurance, determination and single minded are all important qualities to have if one is to be successful. It sounds true, but how do we know? It’s easy to say it after attaining success, but did they believed and acted this way before they were successful?
When a sport figure, a musician or a spiritual teacher talks about what it takes to be successful, he or she emphasizes things such as strong will, persistence, endurance, being single minded, and more. I can’t argue with it (and I’m not trying to either), but always when I read or hear it, it makes me think. Did they always believe it, even when they were unknown, without the money and prestige they have when they say what they say? After all, it is easier to be single minded when you are successful than when you try advance something you love but also have to go everyday to school or get up every morning and go to work.
Well, I’m sharing those thoughts with you because I am in the process of finding out for myself if endurance and single minded are keys for reaching my goal. Seventeen-years-ago my life had changed completely after I started to believe in the existence of a higher power. Since then, learning about and finding ways to get closer to God became my main goal in life. Right at that time, I also knew that when the time comes, I will share this knowledge to others. Put it simply, I was overwhelmed by the “new reality” of living a spiritual life with God’s present, and I always loved teaching so I knew the two must, one day, merge into one experience. What ever happened in my life since, I never took my eyes off the ball, giving up this dream. I made mistakes, looked for different ways to speed the process, tried and failed, hurt, and got hurt, but always knew what was my goal. Looking back, endurance and single minded are part of what I made myself to be in attempting to achieve it. Will it be enough to get me to the promise land? I don’t know and I try not to think about it too much. My responsibility is to make an effort, not to guarantee results.
Yet, the (self) publication of my first book is still five months away, and if you happened to read what I’m writing here around the time I posted it on my blog (January 2011), it means that you knew me personally (which not too many do), or that you stumbled on it surfing the net. What I’m trying to say is that by no stretched of the imagination I “made it big”, yet. I paid a heavy personal price for choosing to pursue this course, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
In the last seventeen years I learned and experienced things so wonderful, and I became so much more than I thought possible that even if my life were to end today I would look at it knowing I achieved my goal. Still, feeling that my work is only just begun, I continue to move forward. So in the future when my book(s) are doing well and I have the opportunity to share my experiences with many more people you might say that my endurance paid, and the final victory Buddha talked about has arrived.
Amen