Positive Persistence and Stereoscopy

Well I apologize if I wrote about this before but an experience pushed it to the forefront.
Last week I was looking at a paleontology book with my professor. There was a set of stereo photographs of bones. Basically this means two pictures of the same thing taken from almost the exact same position... but not quite, so when you look at them through a viewer the image pops into 3D. This is helpful in visual sciences so that others can see the real depth of a hole in a bone or an alien planet's surface (and kids like them). But I've never been good at those hidden image books. My professor didn't take no as an answer and told me I would learn how to see them without the viewers. He sat in his office for a 3 minutes staring at nothing, praying and pretending. Then he asked "Did you get it to work?" "Nope." I was so close to saying yes... I mean how important is this skill anyway? He gave me more instructions. I tried for another few minutes, and then another and another. Maybe 20 minutes after it first came up I had figured out how to do it more or less (with the emphasis on more) on command. I was unreasonably proud of myself. I mean how often can you say you learned an entire skill in one day? But I did feel bad that I had been such a naysayer at the beginning.
In college I took a ceramics class. When we first started using the wheel I had a hard time learning how to center the clay (and that is how you start). I struggled with it for like a whole day and a half! Two days after I got the hang of it I saw my professor working with one of my peers who was still struggling with it. And she was patient.
I also hated reading for a long time because I didn't pick it up right away.
Many things that I have tried come easily for me. So, I have a tendency to resent the ones that don't.
Thus maybe even more than being proud of a new skill I am proud that after those first 3 minutes and that fateful moment. I approached it with a fairly good attitude and pushed through. (And yes... a whole 20 minutes... I know that's ridiculous).