Never Stop, Never Quit
By Sara Martinez
I approached 2008 with an extremely positive attitude. I made a big apartment move in the summer of 2007-- one that I knew I could barely afford, but would have a worthwhile effect on my overall disposition. I repeated to myself “Change in ’07 means great in ’08” with a feeling that 2008 would be a great year, as long as I made the proper adjustments leading up to it.
At this point, I wouldn’t so much use the word “great” to describe the last 7 months. I tend to have a weird sort of bad luck – unfortunate things happen to me, but things usually work out in the end, and through it all I have my health and my family and a roof over my head. When I think of how quickly this year has gone by, I don’t think in months, but rather in the string of disappointing occurrences. I got full body hives for a week after one day of work on a reality show about trash, followed by somebody in Bucharest hacking into my bank account and pilfering $2,000. Next, a portion of my ceiling fell in, and as I was trying to get that fixed, my refrigerator broke. I got tendonitis in my leg, and to pass my recovery time, I bought Rock Band. It turns out my Playstation is too old for it to work properly. Then, some old fogey rear-ended my mom, totaling her car. What followed was some family drama on my father’s side, and finally, in the middle of July (and in the middle of a long employment drought) my beloved 14 year old cat died.
I’ve always tried to keep my chin up because my brain acknowledges that the only thing to do is to just keep on going. I don’t sit around screaming “WHY MEEEEE” because I know everyone has their ups and downs. However, a string of events like this does wear a little on one’s armor and I’ve been spending my time recently trying to be receptive to any and all inspirational advice.
I recently went to a friend’s out of town wedding (in which my brother’s wallet was lost while it was in my possession.,,oof), that required me to miss my boxing class for the first time. After I talked myself down about how it was no big deal, I returned to the class the following week to find out that in my absence, the instructor (that I LOVE) announced that he would be leaving New York for good. While I was picking up the pieces of my broken heart and starting to think about screaming “why meeee?”, my instructor announced to the class that he recently had gotten in a car accident. He explained that he was physically okay, and then started tearing up as he followed up by saying his car was not okay and neither was his bank account. (I believe he was planning on driving out of town). As my heart broke anew for my poor instructor, he pulled himself together and said that these things happen and we all just have to keep going. “Never stop. Never quit.“ It’s so simple to get caught up in how our lives suck, but it’s so effective to see somebody else fall and will themselves back up. At this point, everything’s a cliché: there’s always someone who has it harder than you, don’t give up, the only way you fail is to stop trying, blah bloo blah. But when a large and strapping 6’3 boxing man is almost crying because of his bad luck and is still saying “Never stop, never quit”, then I’ll tell you what I won’t be doing-- stopping. Or quitting.