Determination

Taken from Inner Beauty :A Book of Virtues by Anthea Church,

Determination is an unbroken line, a backbone. It is when every situation is anchored to an unseen aim that keeps everything together. Without determination, life becomes scattered. Determination makes you sit up straight and love everything, because it's all part of moving forward. Day and night you have the feeling that you only have to seek and you can touch the hard core of wisdom that rests inside each moment. You can focus on that, let the toughness be in seeking that and then action is automatically as it should be. Gently right. Battering at life from the outside, trying to change what's visible is inverted determination. It makes your face hard and unyielding and though it may bring visible success, there can be a floundering inside. Determination is not, therefore, a matter so much of action as of stillness. When a quality of mind-peace, happiness, depth, purity-can remain still and uninterrupted by the bumps of life, that is true determination. Such stability, maintained for long enough penetrates the surface of life anyway and it changes. The bumps go. You have to feed determination, to nourish the qualities you wish to keep with you constantly. How? By understanding adversity, we can learn and grow. They are a part of your nature anyway, but it's been winter for so long that they've gone underground. Sometimes you have to burrow to find them and coax them to the surface. Silence can be the best antidote. Silence brings the strength to go on, the steadiness to succeed, the softness to slip past difficulties unnoticed. If determination breaks, it's best stop for a few moments, be silent and find value again, or else what you do will be spineless. Feel the bones of the situation, then fall in love with the task.