Synonyms

a woman very frequently stands at the street corner directly in front of the law building on the university of dayton campus.  as she has for several YEARS, she holds a sign claiming that the law school treated her unfairly.  although the exact nature of her grievance is unknown to me, i am certain that she has one or two qualities essential to her longstanding protest:  persistence and stubbornness.

i don't know about you, but those two words, even though they are similar in meaning, connote different thoughts and images.  and their usage betrays to some degree the perspective of the person.  for instance when civil rights pioneer, rosa parks, refused the order to move to the back of the bus, was she being persistent, stubborn, or both?   when gandhi decided to fast until fighting stopped between opposing religions, was he being persistent or stubborn?  the answer depends on the opinion held by the observer of both incidents.

can we know for ourselves whether we are acting stubbornly or persistently?  is there an internal cue that can help us sort out the difference?  to me, however, the most important question is whether knowing the difference is even relevant.

i am sorta, kinda, maybe convinced that the difference is almost always irrelevant.  even though stubbornness carries a negative bias and persistence carries with it honor and virtue, it involves other people's judgment on our actions.  and that is what makes the difference irrelevant to me.

perhaps a combination of age and life experiences make another person's assessment of our intentions less important.  living through times of validation and of condemnation, many of us decide that the most important opinion is the one we have of ourselves.  the constant 'need' for validation finally leaves us exhaustipated (google it).  as a result, we free ourselves to be more real... more willing to be who we really are.  as popeye would say, 'i yam what i yam'.

the woman on the corner?  putting aside any judgment of her actions or her mental stability, we CAN choose to say that she is doing what she thinks is right for her.  likewise, we can stand on our own street corners,  lift our heads high, and feel the fresh breeze of  authenticity.