A dear friend just passed along a video clip that brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye.  It’s titled “Are You Going To Finish Strong?“  It’s about perseverance and believing in yourself.  Watching the video reminds of the Confucian saying:  “It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.”

I am ever amazed at the strength of our human spirit.  Watching toddlers learning to walk, they fall down onto their diapers 10 or 20 times a day for months - hundreds, maybe thousands of times.  And yet, after all that failure, somehow, most of us eventually walk, run, jump, skip.  At one of my workshops I watched a participant, unaided, gracefully sit on the floor, and just as gracefully, unaided, stand and move about the room sharing hugs.  No big deal, right?  Well maybe no big deal for me, but this participant had only one leg (his left leg having been amputated).  I asked how he ever learned to sit, stand and move so fluidly.  “Because I had to,” he replied.

We have our heart broken, yet we love again.  We re-marry, knowing the uncertainty of love in this uncertain age, and the pain of divorce.  We raise children, even as we try to heal the wounds inflicted on us from our own childhood.  We start new careers, even though our last career wasn’t so very fulfilling.  We risk intimate connection knowing full well that our vulnerability is sometimes the path to feeling strong and whole, and sometimes the path to feeling like a doormat.

Somehow, with just a little encouragement, so many of us learn to “finish strong”.  Will you?