A Lesson Learned from 2023: Persistence is Key
Photo Credit: Unsplash
By Pushpa Iyer
From the balcony of my home, I am watching a baby taking his first steps with the help of a walker. He is unstable on his feet but determined, and he keeps going at it with unbridled joy. I cannot help but compare his efforts to that of my mother - many decades apart in age - who was diagnosed with a neurological issue this year, affecting her balance and, therefore, her walking. She relearned to walk. She was determined and displayed a lot of courage, and there was much joy for all of us with every step she took. Thanks to some excellent doctors and prompt medical attention, she walks without her walker or cane today. And that is what I am thinking as I watch this little fellow holding on to his walker for dear life: “You are surely going to discard it in a matter of days. Keep going.”
If only months ago, you had told me, “Keep going,” I would have glowered at you in my exhaustion, fear, and sense of hopelessness. Today, the last day of 2023 (12.31.23), I am more hopeful and ready to keep going despite many other problems in my life. Why? Because we have been given the gift of life as a family. We are all here. We are pretty healthy, and that is all that seems to matter. Persistence is the key word - doctors persisting, mom persisting, we, the family persisting. We fought hard, and we are getting closer to the other side.
Persistence is a powerful word and a better concept than resilience. The latter says we must return from our suffering and pain, while the former says we continue fighting. And we don’t have to persist alone - we can do it together, allowing ourselves to stop fighting for a moment while others continue to fight. After all, we are persisting for the same cause. When the doctors persisted, we sometimes felt resigned to what we considered to be our new reality. However, the doctors did stop when they had done all they could and said it was now in God’s hands. Mom and all of us persisted from that moment on because now there was hope, and we felt we had come so far, so there was no giving up.
Persistence seems more communal than resilience, for resilience puts so much effort on the individual or a society to bounce back on their own. Even worse, today, we train people to become more resilient so that when there are problems, they figure out how to bounce back while we take pride in how well we have taught them. Okay, I am simplifying things here, but do you understand my point?
Gaza. If you expect this community to bounce back from the horrors unleashed on them, you are being cruel. If you even say the word resilience to the people of Gaza or the traumatized Jewish community for decades to come, you are no different from those unleashing the horrors on them today. However, if we persist together - with the people of Gaza who are just trying to survive and with the courageous peace community in Israel, that respite from the violence may come this new year! So let’s not pause for a minute in asking for the violence to stop, for continued accountability of those responsible for the violence, and for never tolerating antisemitism and Islamaphobia. Let’s persist in asking for the hostages and detainees on both sides to be released. And let’s persist even if some in the region or ties to the region are exhausted from trying to survive and cannot see beyond their own pain to ask for dignity for both Palestinians and Israelis. Finally, let us persist in educating the powerful that asking for violence to stop is a straightforward request that does not require us to take sides. Persistence is Resistance.
While we are at it, let us not forget to persist in our demand for peace in all those places in the world that are torn by war and violence.
My mom and my neighbor’s toddler are both a little unstable, but they continue to persist in walking, and as I walk into 2024, I am grateful to both of them for teaching me persistence.