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An Inspirational Memoir by Neil Peterson
By Neil Peterson | October 27, 2008
We all know the value of perseverance. Those who persevere are the ones who get the victory. Those who keep going when the going gets tough are the ones who attain their goals. Those who stick it out when the average Joe would simply throw in the towel are the ones who taste success.
But for many, perseverance is little more than a platitude…a high ideal that few know how to actually implement in day-to-day living.
Neil Peterson’s Embracing the Edge puts feet on perseverance. It fleshes out the elusive concept, allowing us to grasp what genuine, real-life perseverance really looks, smells, tastes, sounds, and feels like—all while encouraging us in the process.
Peterson’s memoir account is a smattering of stories from his youth up to the present-day. Through well-told, heartwarming, inspiring, heartbreaking, and frequently comical vignettes, the varied shades of perseverance shine through masterfully on Peterson’s pages as we are reminded that anything worth having is worth fighting for; that perseverance frequently means “going it alone”; that sometimes perseverance won’t be rewarded right away; and that the self-knowledge of having persevered is often reward enough.
Catholic priest and missionary Walter Elliott once said, “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another.” Peterson’s work allows us to see the reality of that statement in a very tangible way. Through bite-sized stories—one “short race” after another—we see that Peterson’s success in life isn’t the result of some lofty, unattainable abstract called perseverance that only a handful of the human race can ever hope to master.
Instead, we see that his various successes as an award-winning business executive, environmental innovator, and authority in the disability community are nothing more than the end result of desire and dogged determination played out in one small scene at a time on life’s big stage…
…It’s the eighth-grader fighting a seemingly uphill battle to oust the incumbent school president—and winning. (“President of Saxe Junior High”)
…It’s the high school student refusing to give up hockey and soccer after losing his right eye in a traumatic accident. (“Loss of My Eye”)
…It’s the college student knocking on no fewer than one hundred doors on Capitol Hill in order to find THE perfect summer internship. (“100 Doors”)
…It’s the post-divorce business executive fighting through loneliness by giving of himself to others—namely, by going into work on Christmas day to personally shake hands with the several hundred employees who had to work that day. (“Christmas Day”)
…It’s the 60-something embarking on one of the most treacherous coastal hikes—and surviving sixteen hours in a cave after a rogue wave threatened to sweep him and his team away. (“Rogue Wave”)
Through these and other stories, Peterson artfully weaves together a variety of entertaining anecdotes that all echo the same theme: “Anything worth having is worth fighting for.”
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