In order to achieve an objective, perseverance is often a required quality.  Especially for long-term objectives, it is difficult to get very far without being able to steadfastly persist through the possible impediments in one’s path to reaching a goal.  In the present-day world and in history, there are a great variety of displays of perseverance; however, sometimes less obvious examples of the quality are overlooked, unappreciated, or even misunderstood by others.

The foundation of perseverance is unwavering determination, which afterwards leads an individual to the use additional effort so as to overcome obstacles or defy limitations.  Many people overlook the determination part of this and only look for effort when assessing a person’s perseverance.  As it is not always obvious that an individual is putting in effort (in other words, not all forms of effort are clearly visible, such as the effort used to maintain self-control), many people may have difficulty understanding what true perseverance can be.  For example, imagine two commoner inhabitants of a kingdom ruled by an unyielding autocrat.  When a rampant plague strikes the kingdom, affecting both peasants’ families, at the same time that commoner and aristocratic uprisings begin to occur in the kingdom, the cruel and distrusting ruler gives his civilians a choice: either they enlist in the army to prove their loyalty and help crush a workers’ revolt in a local village, even though they have and will not receive military training, or their families will be refused any form of government welfare and support for five years.  Both peasants are determined to restore their families to good health, but each makes a different choice.  While one courageously decides to risk his life by enlisting in the army and leaves it to the government to save his family from their ailments, the other believes that his family requires more immediate assistance and does not trust the government to provide the assistance it promises in the first place, leading him to refuse to enlist.  Instead, this civilian stays behind to comfort and help his family in whatever way he can.  To many people who are ignorant to the full details, it appears that only the individual who joined the army and risked his life displays perseverance in reaching his goal of helping his family; some may even go so far as to condemn the second as a coward.  However, with all the details of the peasants’ thinking made clear, one can conclude that both are equally willing to persevere in their attempt to reach their shared objective.

Many people applaud perseverance as a desirable quality.  However, similarly to how brute force is not the only indication of strength, apparent/direct effort is not the only proof of perseverance.  Thus, it is important not to so quickly make the assumption that another individual lacks this quality without comprehensive knowledge of his/her situation and objective.  Ultimately, it is not difficult to believe that all people have the ability to muster the determination needed to persevere in their own way in order to achieve a goal they can truly find significance in reaching.