I Nearly Made It | Determination and Resilience
- Karen Bradley-Edwards
- Aug 27
- 3 min read
On Monday, I sat at the side of a lake on a campsite, watching my ten-year-old grandson tackle a huge inflatable assault course.
We had gone away for a few days together, and although there were plenty of other children around, most of them were much older than him. He looked around for someone to play with, but there was no one really his age.
So he turned his attention to the course.
Before long, he made his way towards a set of hanging rings.
I think they were probably spaced more for adults than for children, but that didn’t seem to bother him. He climbed up to the platform, grabbed hold of the first ring and started to swing.
He made it across the first two.
Then he reached for the next one and fell.
Splash.
For a brief second, I held my breath until I saw his head appear above the water again. He swam to the side, dragged himself out and stood looking back at the rings.
I could almost feel his determination from where I was sitting.
So he climbed back up and tried again.
Once more, he made it to the third ring before falling into the water.
He climbed out.
He tried again.
And again.
And again.
Eventually, he walked away and had a go at some of the other obstacles. I thought perhaps he had decided the rings were simply too difficult.
But then I saw him looking back at them.
A few minutes later, there he was again.
Back up onto the platform.
Back onto those rings.
He fell off several more times before finally walking away again to give himself a breather.
Then, for the third time, he returned.
This time, one of the lifeguards started coaching him.
From where I sat in the warm sunshine, I could see my grandson listening carefully and trying to copy the technique he had been shown.
He adjusted his swing.
He changed the way he reached for the next ring.
And on one attempt, he made it to the fourth.
Then it was back to the third.
By now, I knew he must have been exhausted.
He is a very fit little boy. He cycles, swims and walks for miles with his equally active parents. But after nearly an hour on that inflatable course, his body was beginning to tire even if his enthusiasm wasn’t.
Eventually, time was called.
He reluctantly walked away from the rings, threw himself into the water with a flip and swam back to shore.
When he came out, dripping wet and completely worn out, he looked at me and said:
“Grandma, did you see me? I nearly did it.”
And he was genuinely proud.
There was no disappointment in his voice.
No sense that he had failed.
He didn’t measure the afternoon by the fact that he hadn’t reached the final ring. He measured it by how close he had come.
He had tried.
He had learned.
He had listened.
He had improved.
And he had nearly made it.
It struck me then that a ten-year-old had just reminded me of something many of us forget as adults.
We become so focused on the finish line that sometimes we fail to notice how far we have already travelled.
We look at what we didn’t achieve instead of what we did.
We tell ourselves that something didn’t work, that we failed, that we didn’t make it.
But perhaps there is another way to look at it.
Perhaps sometimes, “I nearly made it” is not a statement of failure at all.
Perhaps it is evidence of determination.
Of progress.
Of resilience.
Of having the courage to get back up and try again.
I know that if I take my grandson back there for another little break, he will probably be thinking about those rings all the way there.
And I have no doubt he will try again.
Maybe next time he will make it all the way across.
Maybe he won’t.
But I know one thing.
He will keep seeing every attempt as something positive until the day he does.
And perhaps that is something worth remembering.
Sometimes, we don’t have to say:
“I failed.”
Sometimes, it is enough to say:
“I nearly made it.”
That's Determination and Resilience
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