On Perseverance

When the world says, "Give up,"
Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."
~Author Unknown

One of these days, we will be doing Project:BECOMING for adult women...the lessons that we try to uncover in our program for teen girls are universal and as I am sharing with these young women, I can't help but to also be changed in the process.

As we shared with the girls this week in our Project:BECOMING Harlem session, to be successful in life you've got to learn to persevere.

What stops us? The same things that stop them: being afraid, doubting our abilities, fears of not being inadequate but being powerful beyond measure.

In the past three years of my professional career as a dancer, I have seen many dancers come and go. Sometimes we think that we have to stop and get our life together. As Christal so loving pointed out to me this week, we should never have our lives TOGETHER! Otherwise, where would the greatest joys of life be? We would miss out on that amazing experience of figuring it all out. Learning and growing.

Perseverance is about feeling uncomfortable, making mistakes, being tired, doing too much, pulling back, growing taller in our spirit, finding out what works and letting go of what doesn't. We must learn how to do all this AND keep on going. Otherwise I would miss my whole life, trying to get it together.

Alexandra Joye Houston