Intellectual Perseverance

My personal definition of intellectual perseverance is the ability to press through the complexity in one’s quest in fulfilling educational goals.  Its entails the capacity to continue learning beyond educational or institutional hurdles or barriers place beforehand.  I see it as a distinct ability to acknowledge adversity during an intellectual journey while incorporating a determination to surpass institutionalized confrontations.  Intellectual perseverance becomes crucial when it comes to becoming successful in life, because our success is not measured by what is given to us but rather than what we earned or achieved through hard work.  I think the most rewarding experiences are the one’s that you are forced to put everything into.  For example, excelling through school as opposed to doing just enough to get by in class, you're ensuring that the quality of education is based on what you put into it.  Adversity and opposition is just a part of life.  I believe in order to overcome these obstacles; you have to train yourself to deal with these situations.  Just as if one is in pursuit of becoming the greatest quarterback in NFL history.  To align yourself on the path of becoming the greatest, you have to train and continuously strive for perfection. Perseverance is the drive that continuously strives a person to become better than what they were yesterday.  I think that practicing the art of perseverance and resiliency is a very good way of staying sharp and on top of your game.  Having intellectual perseverance is a trait of strong and defined character   

I believe that the best leaders are the leaders that led by example and from the front.  A leader, who has encountered challenges that require them to persevere, will have a genuine relate ability to their troops or subordinates.  It is both encouraging and reassuring for a member experiencing challenges to look up to their leadership for guidance, knowing that they truly understand what they’re going through.  Throughout my career, I have withstood a multitude of situations that tested my ability to intellectually persevere through them.  On plenty of occasions, I was tasked for convoy escort duty on a few deployments to Iraq.  At the time, I had to exercise intellectual perseverance throughout the initial training and in making everyday decisions.  Such as learning the concepts of properly plotting coordinates, route planning, equipment utilization and unit mobilization.  The reason why I took my training so serious is because of the gravity of mission and the possibility of casualties.  It’s pretty simple, if you’re not in the right state of mind to make these tough decisions, you’re putting others at risk.  Not knowing how to handle the stress can cause one to mentally breakdown if its unfamiliar territory for them, which can negatively affect your team and unit.  This is just a reason why it’s so critical to possess the ability to persevere throughout hardships. 

However, in my studies, I can’t say this has been a stroll in the park. It has certainly been a rough time throughout this journey, especially with trying to balance it out with a full-time job.  There has been many times when I use tell myself that I was done and that I think I’ve had enough.  But continuing my formal studies was something that I made up in my mind a long time ago and that I was going to accomplish this.  I knew that this would take a great deal of time, sacrifice and determination, but I believe that it all will be worth it at the end.  I sit here and think to myself that there's reason why only a small number of the population ever live to achieve a certain level of education or expertise.  Its simply because everyone can't persevere and push through.  As for me, I'm going to keep pushing because I firmly believe I can continue to persevere.