Perseverance

​We were chatting on a video-call with an old friend, and he asked me how my rehab exercises were going. I told him that I had to repeat each exercise many times and do the same exercises over and over; and that doing the exercises day after day was yielding little progress. My friend told me that my description reminded him of the conversations he used to have with another friend. At that time, his friend’s daughter was attending ballet classes at a prestigious school. Ballet requires dozens of repetitions of each step many times a day, just like rehab. His friend found his daughter’s training monotonous. I thought of the actual drive his daughter had to have in order to be a ballet dancer, and of the perseverance she needed to repeat the same movements many days a week. And then I thought about the perseverance I needed to be able to walk and use my arms again. I thought of the boredom and frustration I felt, caused by the constant repetition that only got me a little forward (friends and acquaintances’ admiration notwithstanding).
When I was seventeen, I decided I wanted to study ballet. I started taking classes, but I was easily bored. I didn’t last very long. Yet we always hear stories about famous dancers: how they got to their current position thanks to their indomitable passion. They dreamed of being a dancer and worked hard to make their dream come true. Every repetition was a step toward their goal, so they never tired of repeating.
I long for recovering my lost skills. That’s why I have to repeat my exercises, and repeat them again and again. And despite my boredom and frustration, I have to keep repeating them, just like ballet dancers. Maybe, like those who reach the top, I’ll make my dream come true. Maybe, if I dig deep down under the negative feelings, I’ll be able to find the drive to persevere, and progress will increase.