When is Perseverance Pushing the River?

In the 1970s Barry Stevens authored a book, entitled Don't Push the River.  I read it 25 years ago, when it has a mind resurgence in popularity during the heydey of the 1990s human potential movement.  Quite frankly, I struggled with the book, but the title has persisted as a concept.  If things are supposed to happen, they will; and if they aren't, don't waste your energy trying to push something that doesn't want to happen. In the 90s, when everything seemed to happen easily, maybe the concept was just a sign of the times.

My life has been a challenge for much of this century, and at this New Year, I was shocked to realize how many years have passed since initiating the Millennium.  Many have been the times that I've grappled with whether I was pushing the river, in everything from physical challenges to work situations.

I grew up in the heartland where perseverance and determination were not only virtues, but often survival tactics for our hard winters and summer storms and tornados.  With that said, when I moved to Oregon, I noticed a lot of people who had moved from the Dakotas and Minnesota after a couple of exceptionally challenging weather years.  I render no judgment: they had just decided they could no longer persevere.  (My own move was inspired by wanderlust and the sense of adventure, offered to a flat-lander by the mountains and wild rivers.)

As far as I can tell, I started the process of putting The Game Called Life on Amazon in November of 2013, just days after a government shutdown had provided me with time to contemplate what was important.  Apparently, getting that book to a wider market was part of the answer.  Once we returned to work, the long hours started up again. Occasionally, I worked on formatting, cover design, etc., on a holiday or a weekend, but I am not a detail person, and taking on such tedious tasks when exhausted by my day job was off-putting.  A year later--November 2014--I had a proof.  I sat down one afternoon and hand-marked the edits, entered them into the online text, and then reviewed.  The review revealed more typos which I marked again.  (Long silence follows here until this week.)

I reported earlier this week that it had only taken me 20 minutes to make the changes that had been waiting for attention for 26 months.  Today I jumped in for what I expected would be a few minutes, polishing the final steps in no time.  There is an expression that if you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans. I felt God was laughing at me today. I struggled for hours. Shortly after 5 p.m., my head hung between my hands, and I wondered out loud if the Universe was attempting to tell me to give up.  I thought the message was so important, and I had committed to carry it through. How could iI be asked to quit before it was finished?

Much to my surprise, when I called for help, I actually got a real person who spoke very good English fairly promptly.  "No," she said, "you can't do either of the things you are trying to do to your cover." (Paraphrased.)  Well, no wonder I hadn't been able to do them. I heaved a sigh that connoted both exasperation and relief.  I could give up.

Within another 10 minutes, my submission was complete and has been submitted for review.  Since there is nothing immoral or illegal in it, I am not too concerned.  There is another hoop to get through to get it ready for kindle, but I can't start that until the paper version approval has arrived.

Perseverance has paid off. This time. Yet I do believe there are times when I am being sent a message to just "Give it up already."  That Midwestern upbringing just won't let me let go.  I am not sure how we know.  Last week I wrote about how to tell if our guidance was real or not, and I think the perseverance-versus-the-pushing-the-river conundrum may be another form of guidance confusion.

How do we know?  These efforts in our life don't come with superscripts that say, "Give it up!" or "Hang in there!  Just persevere and this will be rewarded."  There may a way to know when we are in the middle of it.  If so, recognizing the message when I am consumed by the effort is something I have yet to master.  I do know that this evening, I feel light, and my heart feels full. I am not sure, but I am guessing that I wouldn't be feeling that way if I had decided to give it up.