There is a section in the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, where he discusses the exploits of a gold prospector who spent considerable effort mining a seam of gold. The gold seam stopped and they could not find it again. The miner gave up and sold his claim to another group. The second group promptly set to work and found a huge deposit of gold only three feet from where the original miner had stopped.
This powerful gem of a story has stuck with me. Giving up can seem to be the easy way out. If you stop pushing forward, growing, changing, then no one gets upset or uncomfortable. But stopping short of your full potential denies yourself of marvelous riches.
I have been living in this space, three feet from gold, for a while now. Logic would counsel that I just stop, but my heart… my heart says “keep going”. It feels better, way better, to try, even fail, than to never start. Or even worse, to start and then give up before I have done my best.
Sometimes all that is needed is a minor course correction, just as in the gold example. A gentle reappraisal and fresh perspective to make gains in an otherwise stagnant endeavor. The main thing, never give up.
