My foot hurts.
Actually, my foot has hurt for quite a while. There has to be an analogy in there somewhere.
For months, I gave myself the same prescription I have used for most minor injuries throughout my life: I ignored it.
I walked on it. I exercised on it. I bought different shoes. I took some Advil. I complained about it to Cindy. I occasionally announced that it seemed to be getting better, usually shortly before announcing that it was getting worse.
Mostly, though, I tried to work through it.
There is something deeply satisfying about that phrase: work through it.
We like people who work through things. We admire perseverance. At Crossroads, perseverance is one of our Core Virtues. When something is difficult, we don’t give up immediately. We try again. We practice. We struggle. We keep going.
So I kept going.
And my foot kept hurting.
Eventually, I did something radical.
I asked for help.
I had some testing done. Someone who actually knew what he was looking at watched how I stood and walked and how my foot was working. And it turned out that what I needed wasn’t more toughness.
I needed an arch support.
Months of trying to gut it out, and what I needed was a little piece of material under my foot in exactly the right place.
There’s the analogy.
We spend a lot of time telling children—and ourselves—to persevere. Usually, that’s good advice. The first time something gets hard shouldn’t be the moment we quit.
But perseverance doesn’t mean endlessly doing the same thing that isn’t working.
Sometimes you need someone to take a closer look.
Sometimes you need testing to figure out what is actually going on.
Sometimes you need a teacher to explain something differently. Sometimes you need a friend to sit beside you. Sometimes you need an advisor, a counselor, a parent, a colleague, or a coach.
And sometimes you don’t need someone to carry you.
You just need an arch support.
Something small. Something underneath you. Something that gives you enough support so that you can keep moving forward under your own power.
Maybe that’s the distinction worth remembering.
Support isn’t the opposite of perseverance.
Sometimes support is what makes perseverance possible.
Strong Minds. Kind Hearts. Supported arches.
