As a Finn I have always been fascinated by the concept of Sisu, the perservance, the dedication on not giving up and making things work, but considering the perseverant nature a thought occured to me and it was that we just might be really and I mean really stubborn into the point that it might seem normal in a family life.
Thinking back my interactions with family members that might be the case, for example there has been times where I was supposed to do some work at home and I started doing it the way I saw was the easiest, but in fact it was the most convoluted way ever and I got advice from parents to do it differently, which was usually way more efficient, but for some reason I still wanted to do it my way I saw the benefits of their advice but something deep inside told me to just do it my way, not giving up being “perseverant” through the task. No it was just stubbornness.
Same happened in some small arguments where two sides were 100% thinking that they were correct on some small tidbit and when I proved to be wrong and had to give up the mantle “I was right”, I didn’t feel relieved, there was small bitterness that I still did not want to be proved wrong that is why it could be called stubbornly accepting defeat.
In a nationwide scale the stubbornness can still be seen in one way and it is when talking about the lost territories in the 2nd World War. Even though everyone has accepted that they are not our lands anymore there is still some small stubbornness when talking about the lands like they are still ours. 2nd World War did also bring in a good example of the perseverance of Finns when we managed to pay are war reparations which amounted to about $300 million back in just 8 years! Considering the times you could say it was quite an achievement.
Reflecting on past has really opened my eyes on recognizing the differences between being perseverant and stubborn, like they are pretty close to each other in meaning but you do not necessarily be stubborn to have perseverance to get through something. Stubbornness can be seen as a gift and a curse, not knowing how to give up is pretty valuable thing to have but not knowing when to give up is not.
Anyway I would like to say that I still love the stubbornness I have but now that I have reflected on it I should start to learn when to give up and maybe turn most of the stubbornness into perseverance. 😀
Thanks for reading.
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