Over the course of my life, and career as an educator, I’ve been asked these questions more than once.
I remember one time clearly—it was during a workshop on student resilience. Another time, it came up in a leadership meeting.

We throw words like determination, persistence, discipline around like they’re universally understood.

But the more I hear them, the more I wonder if anyone—including myself—really knows what they mean in the most basic, honest context: the self.

Because to know and understand these qualities in ourselves…
is to truly recognize them in others.

So I stand at the mirror, and I ask:
What drives you?
What makes you get up every day?
What compels you to keep going?
What’s at the end of the tunnel that keeps you reaching?

Truth is, it’s not one thing. It’s a mixture.
Part grit, part curiosity, part necessity.

I get up because something inside me refuses to quit.

Call it stubbornness, call it resilience—either way, it’s an engine that doesn’t run on comfort or ease, but on purpose.

Even when that purpose is still taking shape.

I keep going because I believe there’s something worth building, even if I can’t always see it clearly.
Maybe it’s a story.
Maybe a legacy.
Maybe just a better version of myself.

Or maybe it’s the quiet promise I made to myself long ago:
Don’t stop. Don’t settle.

I don’t think there’s a trophy at the end of the tunnel.
Maybe the light isn’t some distant reward—it’s in the movement itself.
In the showing up.
In the trying.
In the deep-down knowing that I was built to keep going.

Sometimes, the work is the reward.
The discipline.
The effort.
The creation.
The truth told on the page.
The difference made in someone’s day.

And still—I keep going.
Not because it’s easy, but because I must. Because I care.

Sure, I get tired.
Plenty of times I’ve felt like I’ve had enough.
Plenty of mornings I’ve woken up and thought, No. Not today.

Then I remember:
“Not today” means today will not be the day I stop.

I celebrate hustle and resilience—mine and others’.
I fall.
I get up.
I persist.

And every now and then, I pause.
I look back.
I take stock of what I’ve built, where I stand.
Only then do I begin to understand where I need to go.

If you open your mind and heart to it, life will reward you with little bits of wisdom and happiness from the most unexpected places—just when you need them.
Those are the moments when it all makes sense.

And maybe that’s why we keep going.

Or maybe…
I’m just stubborn for all the right reasons.