Griffinkeeper
Storybook Godfather
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 Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 7:58 am Post subject: The Importance of Not Quitting |
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When I was a young scout, I attended an Eagle Court of Honor. At that celebration, I was given a card and inside the card was the secret to earning the Eagle Rank. I opened it up and I was surprised at what it said. It had two words.
Don't Quit!
Having gone through the whole experience of earning my Eagle, I'm able to reflect on these two words a little more.
The advice sounds deceptively easy. Yet people quit everyday. Some quit school, others quit jobs, people can quit just about anything.
Quitting, however, is the most dangerous thing you can do. Not so much the act of quitting, but the reasons for quitting. In scouting, people quit for a variety of reasons. Some boys don't get along with the other scouts, some end up getting bored, some just move away and never come back.
Eagle Scouts have a quality of not quitting. This is unavoidable and is something every Eagle Scout must endure. To make Eagle, you have to complete 21 merit badges. I'm not talking about walking old ladies across the street. I'm talking about badges that test your mind, body, and soul.
In all the merit badges, you have to show consistancy, in all things. Sometimes, it's consistantly exercising, consistantly recording things, consistantly moving.
Outings, particularly for the scouts, is one way that we learn how to perservere. I once walked 20 miles with my troop. At the end of 10 miles, I was tired. On the return trip, I was dying. The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that I had to keep going, because the cars were at the end of the hike, and without them I wasn't going to go anywhere.
Eagle scouts don't quit, because they have been trained not to. They are used to problems, it is expected that something will go wrong. There is always something you forgot to put in your pack.
Nothing tests the resolve of an Eagle Scout more than his service project. He has to plan a service project, collect the materials to make it happen, and then see it done. In doing my project, I had to make plans, get them approved by my troop leaders, then by my contact with the city, and even by my contact with the local scout council. Then, I gathered the materials and set a work day. When that came around, I had to see that everyone was doing their job, that everything happened smoothly, and that we didn't run out of materials. Finally, I had to go back to the same people that approved my project, just to confirm it was finished in the first place.
At any one of those points, you encounter snags. I had already given up two projects before I started the third one. The first one I never got past the planning stage, the second one I was forced to drop since I had no support. The final one I had it planned and I had support.
Why then is it important not to quit? Why should we bother trying to do something if it's just too much work?
The answer is this: if you get in the habit of quitting, you will not get anything done. Yet, if you get in the habit of setting goals and working towards them, no matter what gets in your way, then you will succeed anytime, anywhere, with anyone. |
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Areida
The Warrior Princess Ari
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| Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 3:20 pm Post subject: |
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You should have quoted Churchill here. 
But yes, this is very true. I'm somewhat passive, so often I find it easier just to give something up than to stick it out. Of course, that's insecurity too, but there you have it.  |
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