The Quiet Miracle of Showing Up

Imagine failing every single day for 8 years. And still being right.

When I lived in Nairobi, one of my favorite places to take visitors was the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage. They house and rehabilitate orphaned elephants ranging from just a few months to three years old. Babies and toddlers, really. Elephants come to the nursery from many fates. Often their moms were killed by poachers, or the babies themselves fell into a man-made well and couldn't get out. The rangers at the orphanage take them in and raise them until the age of three, feeding them from bottles and helping them learn how to be part of a herd.

Then the elephants leave the orphanage and are taken up to Tsavo National Park. There, every day, the orphaned elephants are accompanied by a ranger and walked into the park for miles so they can get within range of wild groups of elephants to sort of "introduce" themselves. The rangers bring them close to different herds each day so that hopefully the little ones can find the right match. This goes on until one day a wild herd accepts the orphan and he doesn't come back home with the ranger.

It typically takes 8 to 10 years for an orphan to be accepted.

Let me say that again.

8 to 10 … years.

I think about the commitment these rangers have - to do the same thing over and over every single day for years on end. All for the sake of these animals. And they impress me, no doubt - but today's rangers know that approach has worked in the past. There's a history of success now. They know that if they keep it up, eventually, the babies will find a new family.

But what about the first rangers to ever try this? What kind of commitment must they have had to take these elephants out every single day for eight years, never knowing if their plan would work. Every day. eight years. Based purely on hope, commitment, and a belief that in the end, everything would turn out all right.

Data and conventional wisdom would tell them to give up. After a year of trying, or two years. Or certainly after seven years of trying and failing, all evidence suggests their method is flawed, their passion misplaced, their love wasted.

But then suddenly, it works.

It turns out that some commitments aren't measured in milestones or metrics but in the quiet dignity of continuing when everything and everyone tells you to quit. Some dreams aren’t fueled by certainty or progress but fueled by love and by hope, even when the path ahead remains unclear. Some successes emerge from the accumulated weight of showing up, day after day after day. 

Just like a ranger, walking an elephant home at dusk, ready to try again tomorrow. 

What dream would you walk toward for 8 years with no guarantee? And what might be waiting for you on that 2,921st day?