If At First You Don’t Succeed…..

I heard the story of Robert the Bruce in the cave, watching the spider. Three times it was defeated, its web breached and broken, and it kept coming back. So Robert became wise and did not give up hope. Having suffered a couple of defeats that would have chastened lesser men, he went out and fought again, and finally won.

Good for him.

I admired him, of course, we all did. That was the point of the story, that we should persist in the face of discouragement, setbacks and other people asking us, with shaking heads, why are ye bothering with that, hen?

But, there is persistence and there is….folly.

I remember standing out in the car park trying to open the petrol cap of a new car. I must have tried about four hundred times – doing the wrong thing repeatedly. What I was trying to do was obvious, but I was never going to open the thing, by closing it over and over again, was I? Yet stubbornness insisted, and so I was a fool, who wasted a day.

So….If at first you don’t succeed, try something different.

There is that sinking feeling which knows when something is a pointless waste of time, and there is that determination which refuses to go away, and which in the face of failure, dejection and discouragement is strengthened, straightened and made more true. It is the challenge of a lifetime to discern which is which.

 

Barn Owl