Dogged

I’ve been reading my dad’s old copy of See You at the Top. This edition was published in 1975 and it’s highlighted and underscored and asterisked into oblivion. I bet my dad has read the book about a dozen times. Here’s my favorite line so far:

You must have lots of ‘want to’ -- Zig Ziglar

We were watching a documentary about the Grateful Dead tonight and it struck me that Bob Weir was dripping in want to:

My older brother, John, taught me how to tune a radio right at the height of rock and roll hitting the airwaves. The guys who caught my ear were Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison. What they had going was cool. I could hear that, I could feel it. I could feel the excitement. Then I got my first guitar which was a pivot point in my life...I'm not sure I'd ever discovered I had any talent or anything like that. It was just dogged persistence. I had to have the music and so I went after it. 

No innate talent. No special promise or particular predisposition or consecration or nomination. Just a whole lot of want to.

[ Photo by Diego Catto on Unsplash ]