Endure to Conquer, Persevere to Save Yourself

"Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.  You have only to persevere to save yourselves."  ~Winston Churchill

Sometimes I wonder about this idea that Winston Churchill had.  The idea that I only have to endure to conquer, key word being "only".  I mean, it's not like just enduring to conquer is easy cause that's what I've mostly been doing has been enduring what I'm going through and it's been the hardest thing I've ever done in my life and I still don't feel like I've conquered.  At the end of the day, when I go to bed, I always feel like I've lost that days battle.  Even though I was able to endure that day's Hell, I don't feel like I've conquered it.  Maybe just that I was able to endure that day's Hell meant I conquered.  But I feel like there's more to conquering than enduring.  That you must take part in your own life play and not be someone in the audience just watching my own life play out meanwhile checking the time on my watch every 5 minutes waiting for it to end because my life is so boring.  I think there's more that I have to do to conquer this fight and this battle than just endure.  Enduring is hard enough but I think it's also important to be active in your life and by being active in your life, it will be much easier not only to endure but also to conquer that daily hell.

However, I do agree with the second part, the part about persevering to save myself.  When I first came home, I really didn't do any kind of persevering to save myself until a certain friend/pastor came over to my house, had a chat with me and we got to know each other and then he began a mission to help me persevere by getting me out of the house to do things, to get active in my life.  When I had several friends here in my town, they worked so hard to get me out of the house to go do something with them whether it was just to go over to their house and hang out and play games or go do something else because they knew me sitting the house all day was not going to help heal me emotionally and mentally.  To persevere to save myself means I must keep trucking on despite problems or difficulties.  The very definition of persevere is: "to persist steady in action or belief, usually over a long period of time despite problems or difficulties."  To persist steady in action or belief despite problems, that's the key.  I think I still need a lot of help and practice for that kind of definition because my action and belief is never steady.  It's more intermittent or irregular.  So many people tell me to keep at it, keep it up, carry on, stick it out.  But it's so hard to keep at it, carry on, or "persevere" as Winston Churchill so eloquently put it.  Especially now that four of my friends have moved out of town and they were four friends who played key roles in helping me save myself and heal emotionally/mentally by getting me out of the house.  I still have two very dear friends (they are married) who continue to help me get out of the house but they are also very busy people so I'm often now left at home, alone, where I spend a lot of time inside my head thinking about the past and what could have been and that leads to feeling bad about my life which then leads to stepping off the stage of my life where I play the lead role and sitting in a chair in the audience, in the dark in a corner where no one can see me and I watch my life pass by me.

Endure to conquer.  Persevere to save yourself.  Those two things are key in really living your life despite problems or difficulties that may come your way, but, you must be steadfast in them and that's wherein my problem lies.