Perseverance as Inheritance: Why Quitting Was Never an Option

My first conscious interaction with perseverance came early, but when I finally discovered it as a young adult for what it was, it arrived as a realization. An unmistakable aha moment. Like eventually noticing that your hands move like your mother’s or that your resolve echoes your grandmother’s, understanding where it came from brought a deep sense of grounding and belonging.

One of my earliest encounters with perseverance happened in our kitchen when I was six or seven years old. My curiosity and determination to find the cookie jar led me to discover that it was hidden three cupboard stories above me, far beyond what my small body could reasonably reach.

I was thrilled that I had uncovered my mother’s hiding place. But another problem quickly followed. The distance to complete victory felt far and dangerous.

I can still picture myself looking down at my bare feet on the cold concrete kitchen floor, then looking up to what felt like twenty feet above me, where the round jar of delicious cookies sat waiting. I looked down. I looked up. I weighed, in that moment, whether my desire for that crunchy treat was worth the risk of falling.

I thought of more options.

A chair? Yes. But even with help, it only got me part of the way. Eventually, I managed to climb onto the countertop, but the jar was still too far.

For a moment, I imagined sending a flying object to strike the jar just right, knocking it safely to the floor. I blame Xena: Warrior Princess for that particular strategy. Even at that age, I could see the flaw in the plan. A glass jar and gravity were not allies.

Standing there, the distance from the counter to the floor suddenly felt enormous. What I thought would be a simple step down now looked like a deep valley below me. The fall no longer felt small. It felt final.

I needed something long enough to tilt the jar just slightly forward, close enough that I could tiptoe and stretch my arms to reach it.

A rod? I couldn't find any. A broom? Way too long.

Then it hit me. A stirring spoon. Bingo.

On my tiptoes, standing on the counter, I used the spoon. The valley below me warned of an imminent fall. The risk was real. But victory felt close.

My fingers were just beginning to grasp the cookie jar. I swear I could already feel my sensory craving being satisfied.

Then I heard it. Footsteps.

Startled, I lost my balance and came tumbling down. I hit my head hard. I got up, ran to my room, slipped under my covers, and set the scene of a sick, resting, obedient daughter.

My mother had already told me I was not allowed to have any more cookies. The location of the cookie jar alone was proof of her extreme measures against my relentless determination.

And today, I suppose, I am outing myself. I was not sick, Mom. The noise you heard in the kitchen was not the wind, as I said. It was me.

Looking back now, I marvel at that childlike mindset. Strategic. Determined. Quick to pivot. That desire to reach a goal and push past fear, danger, and the unknown did not meet me for the first time that day. I had already seen it lived out around me. It was familiar.

I was interacting with perseverance daily through my mother.

I used to ask her, “Mommy, do you have magic?”

So often it seemed like we had nothing, and then somehow we had. I would desire something, and it would appear.

As I grew older, I learned how hard she worked. I watched her as an entrepreneur, using creative solutions to solve unexpected problems while raising three children. I saw her cook, clean, and still make time to make us feel loved and important. All while pushing past resistance, pain, government upheavals on a small island, and the isolation and loneliness of life without community.

No matter what, she never gave up.

I met perseverance then, many times over, long before I had the language to name it.

It became part of who I was before I knew how to call it. I was determined to do things and refused to stop until they were done. It settled into my core values through culture and learning and slowly became part of my identity.

And then there was her mother, my grandmother.

A husband who went to sea and never returned. Six children left behind. No anchor. She struggled briefly, and then perseverance showed up again.

She conquered impossible circumstances through creativity, entrepreneurship, sassiness, a sharp tongue used to defend herself, and an unshakable refusal to care about what anyone thought she should be. She entered spaces that did not welcome her, loudly and unapologetically, with a matter-of-fact confidence.

Only as an adult did I begin to trace the lines of generational perseverance woven through our experiences and understand how deeply my own perseverance was rooted there.

Perseverance is not motivational language. It is not external. It cannot be faked. While it is often spoken about as encouragement or borrowed through affirmations, applause, or proximity to success, it cannot be sustained that way.

It is intrinsic.

It has always resided within you. It requires activation.

You see, it did not begin with my mother or my grandmother. When I look deeper into history, I see that Black people did not survive because it was easy. Survival was learned. Transferred. Inherited. Through perseverance!

Not all generational inheritance arrives as a gift, but this one did. The drive to push past stop. To continue when retreat feels reasonable. To move forward again and again.

There was a time in history when the option to quit did not exist. That history lives in me. And because of that, I have removed quitting from the list of choices available to me now.

When I set a goal, there is no alternative pathway. I move forward in excellence. In discipline. In faith. Because perseverance is written into my DNA.

No matter the odds against me, I have proof of what is possible when quitting is never part of the conversation, nor part of the formula.

Whatever may come, perseverance will meet me there too.

And if you sit with history long enough, you may begin to see that what runs through your blood has already shown you what you are capable of. That capacity does not shrink. It rises each time you choose to honour it.

Author’s Note

This reflection is written during Black History Month, at a time when I was honoured to be named a Black History Month Round Table Laureate. While the recognition is meaningful, it is important to remember the responsibility that comes with such an honour: to build my community.

This article is my way of naming what I know to be true. Perseverance did not begin with me, and it does not end with me. It was passed down through generations who survived without applause, without certainty, and often without the option to quit.

To be recognized in this moment is not an arrival. It is a responsibility. One that reminds me to continue the work, to honour those who came before me, and to ensure that what has been inherited is protected, practiced, and passed forward.