Perseverance

Thomas Edison’s laboratory was virtually destroyed by fire in December 1914. Although the damage exceeded two million dollars, the buildings were only insured for $238,000 because they were made of concrete and thought to be fireproof. Much of Edison’s life work went up in spectacular flames that December night.

At the height of the fire, Edison’s 24-year old son, Charles, frantically searched for his father among the smoke and debris. He finally found him, calmly watching the scene, his face glowing in the reflection, his white hair blowing in the wind.

“My heart ached for him,” said Charles. “He was 67 – no longer a young man – and everything was going up in flames. When he saw me, he shouted, ‘Charles, where’s your mother?’ When I told him I didn’t know, he said, ‘Find her. Bring her here. She will never see anything like this as long as she lives.’”

The next morning, Edison looked at the ruins and declared, “There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God, we can begin anew.”

Three weeks after the fire, Thomas Edison managed to deliver the first photograph.

Source: Fresh Packet of Sower’s Seeds, p.73-74 – The Best of Bits and Pieces, 1994, New Jersey: The Economics Press, p.137

FACT: Thomas Edison patented over 1000 inventions, but he openly admitted that the majority of his patents had originally started out in life as someone else’s idea. Edison was a man of persistence who picked up the ball that others had dropped or discarded, and then ran with it to the finishing line

The Bible shows that:

• You reap what you sow
• You reap later than you sow
• You reap more than you sow

There’s a story told about a man during the war who was shot and lay dying in the trenches. A friend learned over to him and asked, ‘Is there anyone I can send a message to for you?’ The dying soldier mustered his remaining strength and said, ‘Yes, you can send a message to this man at this address. Tell him that in my last minutes what he taught me as a child is helping me to die.’ – The man was his old Sunday school teacher. – When the message got back to him he said, ‘God forgive me. I gave up on Sunday school teaching years ago because I thought I was getting nowhere. I thought it was no use.

Nicky Gumbel, Alpha Questions of Life, 2007 edition, Eastbourne: Kingsway Communications, p.185

Here’s an illustration of the negative effects of persistence, as told by the late Dr Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), the U.S. clergyman and educator. “On the slope of Long’s Peak (in the Rocky Mountains) in Colorado lies the ruin of a gigantic tree. Naturalists tell us that it stood for some four hundred years. It was a seedling when Columbus landed at San Salvador (Bahamas), and half grown when the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth (Massachusetts). During the course of its long life it was struck by lightning fourteen times, and the innumerable avalanches and storms of four centuries thundered past it. It survived them all. In the end, however, an army of beetles attacked the tree and levelled it to the ground. The insects ate their way through the bark and gradually destroyed the inner strength of the tree by their tiny but incessant attacks. A forest giant which age had not withered, nor lightening blasted, nor storms subdued, fell at last before beetles so small that a man could crush them between his forefinger and his thumb.”

Source: How To Stop Worrying And Start Living by Dale Carnegie, 1953, Cedar Books, London, p.81-82

There are seeds of greatness in everyone. We were all ‘born to win’. During the act of procreation somewhere between 200 and 300 million seeds were released. You won! You are, in fact, not one in a million but one in over 200 million. You won that first, all-important race with persistence – you were born to win – so don’t quit now.

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt adapted from Maximize Your Potential

Persistence alone does not always guarantee success. It is only when we persist with direction and a purpose in mind do we achieve results. I once read of an experiment conducted by the famous French naturalist and Nobel Prize winner, Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915). The experiment studied the behaviour of a certain type of caterpillar, termed ‘the processionary caterpillar’ – so named because when one of the caterpillars moves off in a certain direction, the others follow suit and fall in closely behind the caterpillar in front. In the experiment Fabre enticed one of the caterpillars to crawl around the rim of a large flowerpot. He then introduced other caterpillars to follow the leader until there was so many caterpillars along the rim of the flower pot that it was no longer possible to distinguish which caterpillar was at the head and which was at the tail of the procession. The caterpillars, oblivious to their futile effort, continued to crawl around the rim, following the caterpillar in front for several days until eventually, one by one, they fell off the flowerpot through exhaustion and lack of food. From this experiment we can see that activity or persistent effort does not necessarily equate to achievement. Sometimes we need to know when to persist and sometimes we need to know when to let go and change direction.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt from Discover Your True Potential

‘Can you see anything?’ his assistant asked as Carter’s eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness. Carter could see well enough, but he had difficulty speaking because of the dazzling array of treasure spread out before him.

For more than two thousand years, tourists, grave robbers and archaeologists had searched for the burial places of Egypt’s Pharaohs. Armed with only a few scraps of evidence, British archaeologist Howard Carter’s search, after many years, seemed doomed to failure.

But, Carter pressed through and finally unlocked an ancient Egyptian tomb. No one in the modern world had ever seen anything like it. The king’s embalmed body lay within a nest of three coffins, the inner one of solid gold. On the king’s head was a magnificent golden portrait mask and numerous pieces of jewellery lay on the body and in its wrappings.

Other rooms were crammed with statues, a chariot, weapons, chests, vases, daggers, jewels and a throne. It was the priceless tomb and treasure of King Tutankhamun, who reigned from 1352 to 1343 BC. It was 3265 years later, on 26 November 1922, that Carter made this discovery.

Howard Carter made the world’s most exciting archaeological find because he did not give up seeking. He pressed through. He persevered. A river cuts through rock not because of its power but because of its persistence.

God loves you. God does not force himself upon you, but he promises to reveal himself to you if you persistently seek him.

Nicky Gumbel

Bible in One Year 2020 with Nicky Gumbel, day 96

Thomas Edison, the great inventor, was also a great man of persistence. Over the course of his lifetime he patented over a thousand of his inventions, one of the most famous of which was the electric candescent light bulb. The story goes that it took Edison several years and many thousands of experiments before he finally discovered the successful formula that gave the world the electric light that we know today.

Throughout the long course of his experiments, try as he might, Edison just couldn’t manage to make the filament in the bulb last more than a few seconds. Eventually after many hundreds of such experiments, Edison was asked why he continued to persevere after failing so many times. Edison replied, “I don’t consider that I have failed hundreds of times! I have, in actual fact, only succeeded in finding hundreds of ways it won’t work… but it will.” After many more hundreds of experiments, Edison finally succeeded in inventing a light bulb where the filament lasted months, and months and months. Thomas Edison was a man of persistence. So, take a leaf out of Edison’s book and don’t ever give up!

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt adapted from Maximize Your Potential

The Moso Bamboo plant is native of the Far East. It is grown commercially for use in the construction and furniture industries. However, for up to five years after the sapling bamboo has been planted, even in ideal conditions, there is almost no discernible development. The plant seemingly doesn’t grow. But then, after several years of preparation, the bamboo suddenly takes off, and grows at up to two and a half feet a day, every day, for up to six weeks until it eventually reaches its full height of ninety plus feet. Incredible growth! – But that picture doesn’t quite portray the real truth. You see, for the first five years the Moso bamboo was preparing itself in order to sustain its mighty rise to fame. For the first five years the Moso laid down its foundations with several miles of root system reaching far and wide into the earth. For the first five years the bamboo laid down a foundation that would, one day, support its mighty rise to fame. Our success in life is often comparable. If we are to rise and succeed, then we too must lay down a foundation and develop a root system of beliefs and experiences that will sustain us and prepare us so that we can handle future growth and success.

R. Ian Seymour

R. Ian Seymour, excerpt adapted from Maximize Your Potential

Don’t Quit: Ask anybody who invented the telephone and most people will correctly reply, Alexander Graham Bell. What most people don’t know, however, is that the telephone was almost invented years earlier by a German schoolteacher, named Reis. The earlier experiments succeeded in producing a device that could carry whistling and humming sounds but try as he might Reis just couldn’t get his apparatus to transmit and receive voice messages.

A few years later, Alexander Graham Bell discovered the flaw in Reis’s design. A single screw controlled the balance of the electrodes and by adjusting the screw just a thousandth of an inch, Bell was able to transmit and receive human speech. That minor adjustment was the only thing that separated success and failure – that, and a lack of persistence.