There was a protruding rock where the road met the threshing ground in my hometown. It wasn't a major obstacle, but it always took considerable effort to pull a cart over it. A few years ago, I thought about digging it up, but my father stopped me, saying, "Don't bother. It's a dead rock from the surrounding mountains. Your grandfather said he tried to dig it up a long time ago, and it only got bigger. Later, I tried too, digging out a square area of over six feet, but I couldn't see the edge. It must be a dead rock from the surrounding mountains..." And so, this stubborn rock blocking the road remained, generation after generation.
One day, my nephew was riding his motorcycle home when he accidentally overturned on this rock. He said he wanted to dig it up. I stopped him, saying, "Grandpa, Grandfather, and I all thought about digging it up, but it's a dead rock from the surrounding mountains; we can't dig it up."
Unexpectedly, last year when I went home for the New Year, the rock had been turned over and was lying by the roadside. I heard it was my nephew who did it. It turned out that the rock wasn't a dead rock from the surrounding mountains at all, but just a thin slab of stone about seven feet square. The nephew dug just one foot deeper than his grandfather had dug, and he reached the edge and bottom of the stone, discovering it wasn't a solid rock and was actually quite thin. He easily pried it out and moved it.
Reflecting on this, many things in life are often like this. Sometimes it's not the difficulty that's immense, but rather our arrogance or cowardice that magnifies the challenge. In reality, digging just one more foot might have brought success. We often say that perseverance leads to victory, but many times we don't realize we're only one foot away from success. Faced with this situation, we often become hesitant and fearful, feeling success is out of reach, and choose to give up. Sometimes, the factor influencing our choices is very simple: courage.
"With perseverance, even metal and stone can be carved; without perseverance, even rotten wood cannot be carved." Metal and stone are much harder than rotten wood; don't give up carving just because it's hard, or you'll only face disappointment. But if you persevere and carve, over time, you can create a beautiful work of art. Isn't success the same? As long as you strive diligently, "where there's a will, there's a way."
Success often lies in persisting after each failure.
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