The Power of Perserverance
This is the second in a series of blog posts about results from our nationwide survey, entitled “Lessons in Coping with Economic Anxiety – A Gift from Our Elders”. The survey results were announced in conjunction with the annual conference Aging in America 2009. To read the story of the interesting and inspiring findings, see http://www.walkerwonder.com/pages.php?pageid=24.
In one of the stories people shared with us in our survey, a respondent wrote, “One of my brothers told me, ‘Sis you’ve got to learn how to roll with the punches.’” After reading that, I started to notice how people talked about perseverance, this key quality people rely on in their everyday lives.
Interestingly, not one person said, “My grandparents taught me to persevere;” or “My parents were very perseverant.” Rather, people wrote about people – elder family members and friends who had given them a gift by being a role model for how to keep going in the face of hardship and work to overcome challenges. For example, a 35 year-old woman in Georgia wrote: “My grandparents worked very hard for what they had and always told me I could accomplish anything I wanted through work and never giving up.”
The elders our respondents admired lived lives of everyday courage and optimism. Not necessarily dramatic but always inspirational, they shared their courage and optimism with younger generations.
From a 37 year-old woman in Florida:
The father of one of my mentors did an amazing thing during the Depression. He took basically the last of his money and went and bought every piece of Hanes underwear and undershirts he could gather up from a warehouse in NYC. He brought them back to his store in Florida and rode out the times because people would still buy underwear. Hearing this and remembering this always encourages me to believe that, even when times seem really, really bad, you can still figure out a way to survive and thrive!
From a 20 year old man from California:
My grandfather died during the Vietnam War leaving my grandmother with six children. My grandmother overcame the hardship of raising a family by herself in her early 30s. She raised my mother and her siblings to become caring parents themselves. A lesson that I have learned from my family history is that…as cliché as it is…to be alive is to never give up.
From a 60 year old woman in NY:
My mom raised my brother and me alone and on welfare with no help from friends or family. She taught us to live with dignity and pride and to make do with what we had. She taught us to enjoy life in the simple things we did have. When things finally got better for us, she saved some of what little we had for the next round, if it should fall upon us again. When I started to work, I always saved something too; not so much for the rainy days but because I didn’t really need much. Today my kids do the same thing.
These stories got me to thinking about my own family. I come from parents and grandparents who persevered too. I had grandparents who immigrated to America by boat, in lowly and crowed steerage class. They passed through Ellis Island and then set about building new lives for themselves and their children. I had parents who grew up during the Depression and walked to school in deep snow when that was no cliché. My family members, and the elders our respondents wrote about, persevered through economic setbacks and wars as well as other challenges, but they kept their eye on building joy and prosperity.
To me, here is the most amazing and essential theme: While each of these stories is unique, they all make the same point. The elders our survey respondents told us about - from all areas of the country and from all walks of life - certainly experienced hardships, but they nevertheless found the will and the way to win through. Here’s a host of perfectly ordinary people who did extraordinary things in the face of major setbacks and challenges. They persevered. That lesson in coping is surely a gift from our elders.
Any comments about perseverance in the face of today’s challenges? Any formative experience you want to share about “rolling with the punches”? Share your comments below.
Check back soon for the next post in this series.
