Seeing the End Result

I love to watch the Olympic Games, both Summer and Winter. Ice skaters swirl about on ice and leap effortlessly into the air. Athletes race against each other and the clock. From my couch chair, I might wonder when someone makes a silly mistake, for example, dives with too big a splash into the pool as these athletes make what they do look so easy. But yet what I don't see are the hours and hours of training that these athletes put into honing their craft. They all have immense natural talent. To get to the Olympic Games one needs innate talent. But they have also worked incredibly hard to get to where they are now. I wonder, do all of these athletes have passion for what they do? To keep persevering, one must have passion for one's craft to keep on and on going, working away at something. Sadly though, I imagine that there may be a few athletes who have trained since childhood to be where they are now and their path in life was never their choice to make, though this is perhaps the only life they now know--spare a thought for these people. Hopefully they may feel joy at competing and realise the wonderful innate talent they have.

How does one keep persevering before one has reached the destination? And perseverance may be a skill in its own right, though also a trait one can decide to adopt and slowly work at. I love to write and I especially love to write when an idea strikes as writing then comes effortlessly, but there are many times when I have an idea but the expression comes with difficulty. Vision helps one to persevere: Vision to see the end result before it has been achieved. Vision that one can create something from nothing. Vision that one can hone a skill enough to be a competitive athlete.

There are people who set out to compete at the Olympics and who never make it, sometimes even ending up in a different career choice, and they may have all the necessary ingredients in talent and passion and perseverance and vision, so what is also needed is a measure of good fortune, perhaps to be in the right place at the right time.

But if one stops before one has even tried, one has already failed. Keep persevering, and sometimes the impossible may just become possible.