STICK-TO-ITIVENESS

‘Stick-to-itiveness’ – that’s a word Mom would freely use when reminding me of my goals. She’d say ‘be like glue and be sticky!’ She was kidding of course but she made sense I soon found out on my own when she passed away several years later.

It’s something like this. It’s determinedly focusing on something which you strongly believe in no matter what other people may say to the contrary. It’s working harder than the rest because you know well deep inside that it’s all going to be worth your blood, sweat, and tears someday. It’s pushing the button even harder when friends say you should give it up. It’s trusting in yourself and in what you are capable of even if they say that you can’t or never can. It’s strongly believing in possibilities and potential and that this could happen to you -- Because, to quote Mom, ‘whatever you give fully from your heart and soul the universe in its wisdom will give back to you in full measure too’.

Goals and dreams are not easy to pursue… whatever they are or whatever size they may be, big ones -- small ones. You’d be up against all known resistance or conflict and impediment that all seem to conspire to get you off the track or make things so hard for you that you’d begin thinking of shifting gears and taking another road – an easier one. I often wondered just where these difficulties real or imagined come from. They usually crop up when least expected or least needed. But then again Mom would say ‘they’re there to see if you got the stuff to follow your dream’. Oh they do huh?! Well, I told Mom with the best bravado I could muster ‘this is one person who won’t buckle down with the slightest difficulty’. Mom would simply smile to that (and that made me feel quite uneasy). Why do mothers always see through their children?! And so to make a long story short -- I persevered doggedly, determinedly, persistently, resolutely, tenaciously, and whatever-else-you-may-call-it but which should mean ‘stick-to-itiveness’ in Mom’s dictionary. But I did get there (…to some of my goals; am working still on the rest) and I’ve loved that word ever since…using it like I use my toothbrush everyday. Next to God, Mothers know best.

Consider the postage stamp, my son. It secures success through its ability to stick to one thing till it gets there." -- Josh Billings

(That's Maxie in the picture there, the youngest of our three dogs. She sure can teach you what 'determination' means. lols :-) Yeah, she succeeded to win a piece of Skittles from us.)