Wisdom from Doc

I have spent a lot of time contemplating which qualities and traits to include in the books as Murray’s finest.  Persistence rose to the top of the list, likely because my mom pounded it into my head every day as a child.

But I’ve also learned a lot about persistence as an adult from my first boss and mentor at the college where I teach music.  Doc Shroyer is what you would call a true Renaissance man…and likely a genius.  It was kind of scary to contemplate what was going on in that mind of his.

Whenever we faculty were conducting academic triage (AKA trying to save a student), Doc would base most of his predictions for success on whether the student was half-smart and physically able (by which he meant willing to do the work).  Doc wasn’t demeaning our students or questioning their level of intelligence.  Rather, he was correctly stating that sheer persistence will get you a long way toward any goal, including graduation.

Show up and keep trying.  I like seeing that in children’s stories. 

I recently discovered how important persistence is as I tried (and failed) to learn how to knit last summer.  The stack of ugly knitting blobs demonstrated how many attempts it took to get to my later, somewhat normal looking blob.  And when I got frustrated with trying to follow all the YouTube tutorials (which was quite often), I followed Doc’s advice of sleeping to give those brain synapses time to “synap.”

Yep.  The man’s a genius. 

Happy reading!