This post was originally published in 2015 · Jacob M Hansen

If you don’t know what an aerator is, think of it like a really heavy tiller that punches holes in your grass by using a rolling cylinder of spikes.  Yeah thats right–it makes those little dirt clods you were always confused about as a kid. This last spring I was engaged in raising a couple thousand dollars for my trip to Japan, so suffice it to say that I spent a lot of time working with aerators.  

For over 50 lawns, my aerator served me well.  Then, the inevitable happened: it died.

I was just getting started on my second to last lawn of the entire season, when my trusty aerator sputtered and shut off.  I checked the gas and oil–they were fine. I examined the engine–everything was in place. I pulled the starting cord dozens of times, but to no avail.

So in the middle of someone else’s front yard, I sat down and mentally bemoaned my situation.  I probably should have counted my blessings and moved on. After all, at least it was breaking down at the end, not the beginning of the season.

Nevertheless, I was frustrated.  I had committed to finishing this job, but now it seemed like I was being forced to step away from opportunity and waste my afternoon.  I began drafting my apology phone call in my head. I was literally about to give up and load my machine into my trailer.

But then I had an emotional snap, and I thought to myself, “This is ridiculous.  I’m not going to waste my time driving home and giving up. I don’t care if I have to push that aerator the whole way–I’m finishing this yard!”  Call me foolish, if you will, but I sure was determined. 

I grabbed the starting cord, gave it another dozen pulls, and, what do you know?  It started, rolled over a few times, and died again. I repeated this process five or six times and noticed that it was lasting for longer and longer.  Soon enough, I could make it all the way across the yard. The next thing I knew, it was purring like a kitten. I was so grateful and relieved that I was probably purring like a kitten too!

Moral of the Story

I later realized that the aerator had sat through a heavy rain storm the night before.  My best guess on why it died was that certain parts of it were still wet and therefore not able to function properly.  Once I got it moving for long enough though, it dried out and worked just fine.

I learned this later, but when I was faced with the problem I didn’t know that there was a solution in sight.  All I knew was that I didn’t want to give up. I persisted. And as it turned out, that was exactly what I needed to do.  

But what if I had given up?  I probably would have felt a lot like this guy:

He was within a hair of the success, but never knew it because he quit trying.  

I call my story a parable because it can be applied to almost every goal we have in life: we won’t know how close we are to success until we’ve reached success itself.  If you give up before you succeed, you’ll never know how your circumstances might have changed, what you might have done, or who you might have become. All you will know is that you failed.
If you’re doing something worth succeeding at, don’t give up.  Persist.