We were fortunate to take another trip to the beach this winter and yet again we found ourselves building a sandcastle! This year I went into the process with full acceptance that my daughter would destroy whatever we built so this was much more about the journey than the destination.
As we got to building, I was in charge of constructing the castle which were some buckets of flipped over sand, and my daughter was in charge of building the moat and the protective wall. As we built, some waives threatened the castle right from the start, but our defenses held. Then, I’m not sure if the tied was coming in or it was just some large waives, but our defenses were overtaken. As the moat filled, water crashed over the wall and towers began to crumble. In this potentially devastating moment, my daughter said “Well, now I have a reason to work even harder!”
She began digging with all her might as we fought this losing battle against a relentless foe. At this moment it made me think about adversity. It is easy to just give in and quit when the going gets tough. When the impediment doesn’t just give, it is so easy to give in ourselves. But, that is not what we should do. It should be our que to work harder, to meet the challenge head on. In the end it may still result in a perfectly smooth beach with no sign of our castle having ever been built or, it might not. With that extra fight, you may just get that much better.
Whatever the outcome is at least you can walk away knowing you gave it your all. You will have the pride of knowing you chose to work harder rather than just caving. That you left it all out there. If you are defeated in the end you can take pride that it was not from a lack of effort on your part. As you face challenges that makes you want to quit, take a breath and see if there is more to give. See if you can work just a little bit harder to push through. In the end, I think you be surprised what you are capable of when putting forth that extra effort.
Tony Moceri 