Perseverance

Winners never quit and quitters never win ...

It has been my mommy mantra - when a Cleary child starts to whine (and that in and of itself could be an entire blog on it's own - I detest whining and will practically eat my own if they dare to start up) - "it's too hard" "I don't want to do this anymore" "I'm tired" they can probably see the look in my eyes and the set jaw as I start in again and recite "Winners never quit ..."

And so as I've sat down to master these paper cranes I've had to remind myself of just those words. Granted this is far from the most difficult task I've ever had to do (I have twin 14 year old boys afterall - who just for the record are good kids, but they are twins). I've watched the online YouTube tutorials, I've printed out directions from the internet, and yet still I feel like my fingers are totally uncoordinated as I try to delicately fold a small piece of paper into a crane. I've folded it backwards (so the white paper is on the outside and the color paper is on the inside). I've somehow folded it in the wrong direction and not been able to make the inverse fold for the head and tail. And yet I press on. I was determined to figure this seemingly simple origami crane out. The photo above shows only a few of the failed attempts - I threw away at least that many more before I thought hey - maybe I should keep these. Because we do learn from our failures. If it all came easy there would be no sense of accomplishment.

So my cranes might not be perfect ... yet (surely by 999 they will have to be close?). But it's been a good lesson for me, a good reminder, that with so many things in life you just have to hunker down, and persevere in order to get to your goal. j.