Determination and Resolve – The Eighth Perfection

This essay is based on a talk by Carol Russell on March 3, 2026

Tonight, we are continuing our series of the ten paramis, the ten noble qualities we are encouraged to develop, ten qualities that have both liberating and compassionate elements.

When I was working as a drafter in an architecture firm, I decided I wanted to become an architect. I didn’t want to leave Prescott to go to a university. At that time, you could still apprentice in architecture, put in your eight years, and then sit for the professional licensing exams. 

When I was accepted to sit for the exams, which were four days long and offered only once a year in June, I wanted to be as prepared as I could be. I knew that the passing rate was somewhere around 50 percent. Daunting odds, especially for someone who had a deep training in the real-life work of architecture, but hadn’t benefited from a formal education. Plus, I didn’t want to have to sit for the exams more than once.

I resolved that I would spend every free hour from January 1st until the exams in June preparing for the exams. So, evenings and weekends were spent studying and deepening my understanding of subjects that would be covered in the exams. Except for Sunday, May 25, 1986 when I went to I-17 and held hands with a line of people in the Hands Across America event – remember that? - I did stick with my plan.

In thinking about this subject of resolve, I can recall the internal sense of it, energetically and emotionally, what it felt like to commit with grit to something I really cared about. I imagine you can think of sometime in your life when you made up your mind to do something and you stuck with it. What is a word or two that describes the quality of that feeling?

We could think of resolve and determination as aspiration plus follow-through. We see something we want in our life (aspiration) and we commit to following through. 

Read More