Keep Good Going – The Most Important Lesson My Mother Didn’t Teach Me

This post brought to you by New York Life. All opinions are 100% mine.

“Keep Good Going” is about the idea of perpetuating the good that positively affects everyone in your life and family. It’s the good you want to pass onto others you care about—in big or small ways—because you know how it can positively shape their life experiences.  Even amongst difficult and challenging circumstances (like little Julia in this video – The Happiest Daughter), good can be what you teach, or simply what you show through your words and actions – the good you want to pass onto your kids, and they in turn want to pass onto theirs.

Being a mom is scary.  When they’re babies, it’s almost like just having a really needy pet – gotta keep them fed, safe, warm, and that’s about it.  But now that I have an almost 2-year-old, I’m realizing how high the stakes really are.  Here you have this child, this LIFE, that you are expected to teach, to mold, to shape, to counsel, to guide into an adult.  And there is no instruction manual – no black and white, right or wrong way to go about it.   But I do have a fantastic example of mothering from my own mom.  So when I stop and think, what are the most important lessons I want to teach my daughter? – of course I think of my mom, and what I learned from her.

To me, that is the epitome of the phrase “Keep Good Going” – what is the good that was instilled into me, and what do I need to pass on to my own daughter?   One of the biggest, most important lessons that my mother passed on to my sisters and I was “don’t quit.”  Of course, there were the practical lessons of commitment and dedication, forced upon me illustrated to me by making sure I followed through with commitments and promises that I made, even when I didn’t feel like it.  Music lessons and practicing (oh, so many fights over practicing), concerts, softball games, homework, our paper route…the common thread through it all was don’t quit once you’ve started something.  But with my mother, it wasn’t just a matter of teaching me those lessons through words.  She kept good going by illustrating the lesson of “don’t quit” through her actions, even when presented with immense challenges.

Choosing to stay home to raise three daughters – don’t quit.  Going back to college full-time and graduating at age 40 with a nursing degree – don’t quit.  Working 3 days a week as a nurse while still going above and beyond as a mom and managing a household – don’t quit. Getting diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer just shy of age 50 – don’t quit.  Months of chemotherapy treatments and continuing to work as a nurse – don’t quit.  Losing all of her hair – don’t quit.  Not missing any of her daughter’s concerts or events through it all – don’t quit.  Being hospitalized for 10 days with a staph infection from her port for chemo – don’t quit.  Beating cancer and choosing to become a hospice nurse – don’t quit.

The kind of perseverance that I learned from my mom is not the kind that can simply be “taught.”  It was lived.  My mom is truly the definition of “Keep Good Going” – and she keeps inspiring me each and every day.  I want to be the mom to my daughter that my mother was – and is – to me.  That’s how I’m going to keep good going.

New York Life is celebrating Mother’s Day by Celebrating Good.  They’ve created a really neat “digital billboard,” which captures and tallies in real-time the moments of family good, both big and small!   New York Life believes in perpetuating all the good that’s in your life, and recognizing the good lessons that get passed down from one generation to the next. With Mother’s Day around the corner, they want to remind everyone of this by celebrating moms in a new, innovative way. Below is how they are collecting and showcasing all of this. Share something you’ve learned from your mom by clicking on the below:

You can upload photos of you and your mom, and share tweets with something you’ve learned from her.  Learn more about how New York Life can help you and your family Keep Good Going through this amazing initiative!

How has your mother – or someone else in your life – inspired you to keep good going?

I love you, Mom – Happy Mother’s Day! You’ve taught me well.  Phil. 4:13

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