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Book Description

In this inspiring and beautifully illustrated book, bestselling author Margaret Wheatley offers guidance to people everywhere for how to persevere through challenges in their personal lives, with their families, at their workplaces, in their communities, and in their struggles to make a better world. She provides hope, wisdom, and perspective for learning the discipline of perseverance.

Wheatley does not offer the usual feel-good, rah-rah messages. Instead, she focuses on the situations, feelings, and challenges that can, over time, cause us to lose heart or lose our way. Perseverance is a day-by-day decision not to give up. We have to notice the moments when we feel lost or overwhelmed or betrayed or exhausted and note how we respond to them. And we have to notice the rewarding times, when we experience the joy of working together on something hard but worthwhile, when we realize we've made a small difference.

In a series of concise and compassionate essays Wheately names a behavior or dynamic—such as fearlessness, guilt, joy, jealousy—that supports or impedes our efforts to persevere. She puts each in a broader human or timeless perspective, offering ways to either live by or transcend each one. These essays are self-contained—you can thumb through the book and find what attracts you in the moment. Perseverance helps you to see yourself and your situation clearly and assume responsibility for changing a situation or our reaction to it if it's one that troubles us. There deliberately are no examples of other people or their experiences. You are the example—your personal experiences are the basis for change.

In addition to Wheatley's graceful essays there are poems and quotations drawn from traditions and cultures around the world and throughout history. The book is deeply grounded spiritually, accessing human experience and wisdom from many sources. This grounding and inclusiveness support the essential message—human being throughout time have persevered. We're just the most recent ones to face these challenges, and we can meet them as those who came before us did. As Wheatley quotes the elders of the Hopi Nation: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

Table of Contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Other Books
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. From the Elders of the Hopi Nation
  8. Questions and Answers
  9. Perseverance
  10. A Knife
  11. PART 1 Here Is a River
    1. We’ve Been Here Before
    2. What Time Is It?
    3. It’s Our Turn
    4. Dwelling in Uncertainty
    5. Finding Our Place
    6. History Chooses You
    7. The Right Thing
    8. Naming Myself
    9. Never Too Late
    10. Only Don’t Know
  12. PART 2 Let Go of the Shore
    1. Eagerness
    2. Fearlessness
    3. Righteous Anger
    4. Urgency Urgency
    5. Lost
    6. Non-Denial
    7. Self-Deception
    8. Back and Forth
    9. Middle
    10. Everything Changes
    11. No Big Deal
    12. Destination
    13. Steadfastness
    14. Staying
    15. Choosing
  13. PART 3 Take Nothing Personally
    1. Emotions
    2. Praise and Blame
    3. Failure
    4. Blame
    5. Fear
    6. Aggression
    7. Jealousy
    8. Boredom
    9. Laziness
    10. Discipline
    11. Stupidity
    12. Loneliness
    13. Guilt
    14. Grief
    15. Death
  14. PART 4 Banish the Word Struggle
    1. Why Stay
    2. Giving Up
    3. Don’t Ask Why
    4. As It Is
    5. Choice
    6. Stuck
    7. Control
    8. Invisibility
    9. Frustration
    10. Experiments
    11. Clarity
    12. Life Is Life
    13. Just Like Me
    14. Clear Seeing
    15. Success
  15. PART 5 For We Are the Ones
    1. The Path
    2. Opening
    3. Edge Walking
    4. Vigilance
    5. Groundedness
    6. Faith
    7. Abandon Success
    8. Patience
    9. Joy
    10. Fruition
    11. The Five Strengths
    12. Raven, Teach Me to Ride the Winds of Change
    13. Time to Play
    14. We Knew
  16. About the Author
  17. About the Artists
  18. About Berkana
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