The Difference between Persistence and Determination
This article is of a different sort from what you may be used to from me. It is more “philosophical”. If you like it, tell me because I have more.
“Only persistence and determination together overcome obstacles,” says the now well known but apparently anonymous quote:
Nothing in the world can replace persistence:
Not Talent, for unsuccessful men with talent are common;
Not Genius, for unrewarded genius is almost a proverb;
Not Education, for the world is full of educated derelicts.
Only Persistence and Determination Together overcome obstacles.
We all have an idea what are persistence and determination but what do they really mean? The roots of words do not dictate their meaning that they are useful for uncovering its layers that have been lost over time. Persistence literally means standing through, particularly in a firm manner. One stands through an onslaught but merely standing does not necessarily make for progress. One could even stand and be forced backwards yet remain standing; and still, that would be persistence.
What is determination? Again literally, it would mean marking the end of something or its boundary. It is still used in this formal sense legally, for example when the Governor General of Australia in 1975 dismissed the Prime Minister, the letter of dismissal said that he would “determine” the latter’s term of office. What does this have to do with what we understand today to be determination, as a quality of mental intention?
Determination sets limits internally but not yet externally. It does not regard what is outside of the limits that are established but only inside. Determination is therefore not definition, because definition makes precise by excluding what is defined as not to be the case. This is also true in everyday language, as the “definition” of a word.
So, when one is determined, when one experiences determination, what is it internally that is established? What is it that is made to be inside? Determination, as we understand it today (and in fact since the late seventeenth century), signifies a state of mental resolution. Therefore what is cut off, what is excluded, is further reflection and distraction.
Persistence is then understood as: remaining standing through the winds and storm of doubt and questioning; while determination is the cutting off, the cessation, of that distraction. Together they set the stage for perseverance.
Persistence is sometimes confused with perseverance, which is in fact the next step after, first, persistence and, then, determination. To persevere means to continue a steadfast, even strict and austere, indeed in a severe manner. Perseverance is about motion forward through endurance, a mental quality captured fully neither by persistence (which can be done standing still) nor by determination (which is only a mental resolution).
Persistence is about recognizing a situation and having an attitude about it. Determination is about having done with that attitude and deciding to proceed or to act. (Deciding actually means, by its root, cutting the measuring rope by which one has determined the end of the length being measured.) Perseverance is the quality of action that is determined upon the resolve of persistence.
