Show Up Anyway
The hardest lessons don’t always start with purpose. Sometimes they start with panic.
There’s a story I’ve never told in public. Not because it’s a secret… it just never really seemed all that important. But after spending six weeks writing this newsletter and reflecting on how my own purpose has compounded over time, turns out it is.
We all carry stories like that. Quiet decisions that we prayed over and lived through in the moment, and then moved on. But the decisions we made in those moments never really leave us and, if we let them, sooner or later they remind us how deeply they shaped us.
Here’s mine:
Freshman year of college I was a brand-new pre-med student. I’d heard rumors that “Physics 10” — the standard required physics course at my college for future doctors — was viciously competitive. A cutthroat curved battleground where the pre-meds with the sharpest elbows and the most expensive calculators fought for the fewest A’s.
So I tried to outsmart the system. Instead of “Physics 10” — the standard pre-med gauntlet — I enrolled in “Physics 15,” billed as an “advanced preparation in physics and mathematics” designed more for engineers than aspiring physicians. I come from a long line of engineers, so I figured: same credit, fewer future otolaryngologists (I’m looking at you, Andrew DiMatteo, MD).
What I didn’t realize was that Physics 15 assumed you’d already taken multivariable calculus. I had not.
By the end of the first week I couldn’t follow most of the equations on the board. By the end of week two, I felt like I was drowning. The first test… fair to say it didn’t go well and I was advised to drop. More than once.
But something in me wouldn’t let go. Some part of me knew there was more at stake for me in Physics 15 than learning how to express Newton’s laws in partial differential equations.
This wasn’t about physics. It was about proving to myself that if I really wanted to, I could do the hard thing. Even if I didn’t yet know how.
So I made a quiet decision:
I showed up.
To every office hour the professor offered.
Every week.
All year.
I’m pretty sure I drove the professor nuts. I definitely drove myself nuts. But slowly — week by week, session by session — I figured it out. I learned the calculus. I passed the tests. And somehow, by year’s end, I had earned an A.
Not because I was smarter.
Not because I was better prepared.
But because I didn’t walk away when it got hard.
And that’s the part I never told…
Because back then, it didn’t feel noble.
It just felt necessary.
Looking back now, I realize it taught me something essential:
Purpose doesn’t always start with clarity. Sometimes it starts in conflict — and perseverance shapes it into meaning.
I think a lot of us need to hear that right now. Especially those of us building, leading, or holding the weight of a big vision. Because it’s easy to confuse uncertainty with being off-track. To think that if it doesn’t feel clean or focused, it must not be working. But that’s not how purpose gets built… much less how it compounds.
Purpose gets built when we show up anyway, when we take what we believe to be the next right step even when the outcome is unclear. When we carry our doubts, our fears, and our fatigue with us… and keep moving anyway.
That’s the real through-line of this whole project: Not perfection. Not polish. Persistence.
The decision to keep going — especially when it doesn’t feel clear — is where clarity eventually comes from.
Call to Action
We all have a story like this. What’s your version of Physics 15?
Repost this with your story — not for the applause, but to remember who you were when no one was watching.
Or tag someone who’s in that season right now — and remind them they’re not alone.
The Perseverance Playbook™ is a weekly newsletter about the middle miles, where purpose is forged and leadership is born. Written from airports, sidelines, and the spaces in between by Dr. Chris DeRienzo.
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