Law 23 of Persistance

This is a simple law of nature, but one which is very handy:

If You Persist, You’ll Win.

That’s it.

In almost every situation, we humans have this one Freedom which we often overlook. It is this: We can try again.

This might not sound like much, but if you think about it, it’s clear this means you have the freedom to keep trying until you succeed.

In other words, when trying something new, it’s common to fail, perhaps repeatedly; that’s how we learn what doesn’t work, and what does.

Probably the commonest cause of “failure” is that the guy stops attempting, and so never gets past the errors and into the winning actions.

This doesn’t mean that you should always keep trying. Sometimes you gotta know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, know when to run. The law of persistance doesn’t say you should persist; it just says that if you do persist, you’ll win.

It raises the question: What does “winning” mean?

The best definition I’ve heard is that if you do what you intend to do, you’ve won. If you intend to walk to the bank, and you walk there, you won. If you intend to not eat chocolate cake, and you don’t eat any, you won.

But once you’ve decided upon your strategy, decided upon what you intend to do, the most powerful mantram you can have, to rekindle your intent, to keep your spirits high, to keep you working through the failures, is this: “If you persist, you’ll win. If you persist, you’ll win. If you persist. you’ll win.”

For these words I thank Ron Cook of St. Louis, in 1967.

Knowing this important secret of the universe, go forth and prosper.