Perseverance

Hard work is a cure for depression and anxiety...

Our Ancestors evolved through time by their ability to meet challenges head on. Our brains were designed to be stimulated. We have gone from farming to factories to office jobs. A comfortable life without challenge. Our brains start to look for stimuli to fill in the gaps that lack of challenge has caused. Through auto/visual stimuli, such as social media, we look for that "thing" that might be the missing piece of us falling short and into laziness. We need mental and physical challenges to give our brains what it needs to be whole. The challenge should be tough and uncomfortable but something that is accomplishable. Think of challenges as a spectrum. On one side is too little, this will leave us feeling lazy, and on the other side is burnout, which will leave us feeling more depressed. The middle is where we want to keep ourselves. This is doing the challenge till it gets to feel like a drag, pushing yourself a little further into it, then resting until you are so well rested that you feel restless, then starting the process again. This has a direct upside of getting the work done but also an indirect feeling of accomplishment that helps get rid of those feelings of anxiety and depression. When these challenges are a part of your deeper meaning and purpose in life, everything hits different. Mindfully working on purposeful things is the bees' knees. So, find work that you want to do. Push yourself until just past the point you don't want to, then rest well until you start to feel restless. Repeat. This will put you in a better place.

Our tenth noble virtue is Victory. We need to continually achieve victory in our lives, for our Folk, and in turn for the AFA. When we challenge ourselves to all the areas of excellence, push ourselves, rest, and repeat, we keep ourselves moving forward. Constant Victory! Victory brings a set of positive consequences. We will always be a winner if we keep in that challenge loop moving forward. We will make our Gods and Ancestors proud!  We will leave something better for our children and grandchildren.

Hail Victory!

Hail the AFA!

Gyðja Sara Ault

sault@runestone.org

~ From The Runestone, November 2025 ~