A great man, Samuel Smiles, once said "They who are the most persistent, and work in the true spirit, will invariably be the most successful."
As I am sure that this inspiring quote has much truth to it, I can't help but feel sometimes as if my own perseverance of my goals is absolutely worthless.
Why's that?
Let me tell you about my week.
First of all, there is the usual work. As any teacher can tell you, being persistent is a never-ending job with students. Every day, I remind Mouse 5 times a day not to yell over me while I'm addressing the class. Every day, I have a talk with either Snobby Sarah or Sneaky Susan about how to get along with other girls. Every day, I remind Know-it-all to use the restroom, Happy Hannah to sit in her seat, and Distractable Dannie to mind her own her... PLEASE.
This week's work is extra special, as the third grade play is tomorrow. For the last week, I have been persistent in answering phone calls, responding to emails, and writing notes home to parents in agendas about costumes. However, as of yesterday not many parents seemed to really have any costumes ready. Rather than be creative and create costumes, they opted to wait until the last minute and call up the principal's office to complain about problems they were having finding any costumes.
The icing on the cake is how persistently I've tried to communicate with an impossible-to-get-along-with parent. Yet still she insists I am a terrible teacher, although her son has had amazing learning gains this year. According to other parents (who obviously trust me more than her), she is infamous for talking behind my back. I meet with her and Mr. Collins on Friday to discuss the latest "problems" she sure are going on in my classroom.
In my own personal life, I have been persistent with a number of different things.
I continue to strive to find a husband by May. This summer, I had no problem meeting tons of excellent, dependable, good looking men. The minute I arrived back into Florida, the problems I had last year all began again. I am proud to announce that the men of Port Prozac (and Whorelando) are: perverts, sex-maniacs, Disneyworld workers, artificial, unintelligent, antisocial, queens, drug addicts, or emotional hijackers.
I persevere with my organizational problems (which I'm supposed to be taking care of during this detoxing cleanse of mine). Everything is all over the place (my apartment looks like an atom bomb testing site), and I'm not making any leeway on ANYTHING.
I am persistently trying to make my life a little less complicated- such as installing a water filter to the end of my faucet to eliminate the moldy Brita pitcher I never fill in the fridge. Imagine me Sunday night, screwing it onto the faucet, only to break the end of the faucet, making it un-useable. Now imagine me Monday night, installing my new faucet myself, only to create a crazy leak (that could not be stopped) in the old faucet. Now cut to me realizing that the only way to stop the leak is to get the new faucet on- which is impossible to do from underneath the sink due to angle of nuts. The solution? Picture me swinging a FUCKING HAMMMER wildly, smashing apart the old faucet. There are pieces of metal, plastic, and rubber rings flying to and fro, bouncing off the fridge, hitting dishes, and sliding across the linoleum. And after all this was accomplished and the new faucet was on- a leak from underneath at the rusty old cranky-knob thingy. There is nothing to do- the knob needs to be replaced by a plumber. So now my kitchen is a mess, waiting for plumber to come when I have the time to let him in.
Last, I persist with my health regimen. In a perfect world, after I complete my detox, I will never ingest anything harmful in my body again. However, a more realistic person would say that it will probably last about a month until I'm holiday binge-drinking, coffee drinking, waking up at night with the urge to eat entire contents of fridge, and being tempted with various unhealthy things by unhealthy people (and enjoying all of these temptations to an unhealthy degree).
Yes, I persist every day to reach my goals. It just seems as of lately, that I've been getting no where with any of them. Yet I will continue to move forward, hoping to reach them someday soon.
A great man, Samuel Smiles, once said "They who are the most persistent, and work in the true spirit, will invariably be the most successful."
I hope you're right, Mr. Smiles..... I hope you're right.
