I was recently asked about the title of my blog.
The phrase comes from a speech that Teddy Roosevelt once
made. See what you think...
“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble
ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of
labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to
the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from
danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these, wins the
splendid ultimate triumph.”
How do those words strike you? Exciting, shivery wonder... or dreary, difficult
drudgery?
When I first read them, they made me want
to go charging up a hill at high speed and break into an Italian aria at the
top! A mission! A purpose! A victory!
Maybe that’s because I know a little bit about
Teddy Roosevelt, so I understand the heart that expressed itself in those
words.
Did you know that he was a sickly child with
severe asthma who suffered near-fatal attacks over and over in his
childhood? He was a fragile little
creature not expected to reach adulthood.
But he had a curious mind and a great love of
nature and a tenacity that drove him beyond his illness. He read voraciously and became a student of
life. He put himself on a regimen of
exercise to build his strength, and after having been bullied by some older
boys, took up boxing lessons.
Roosevelt became a naturalist, an author, a
soldier, an Amazon explorer, a larger-than-life, ebullient optimist. He had adventures enough for half a dozen
movies. I’ll let this picture tell the
story... he’s riding a bull moose (not known to be one of nature’s pussycats)
across a river. Umm. File that under “D” for Danger.
The “strenuous life” was all there was for Teddy. If he hadn’t taken that attitude, he would
have been dead before his 18th birthday.
Instead he had a glorious adventure of a life. It was full of setbacks and heartbreaks as
well, but it was a resplendent life.
When we limp along in ill health, we’re missing the wondrous
exuberance of a full life. This culture
is not looking out for our health! If we
don’t take personal charge of what we eat and what we do with our bodies, we will be
that sickly child that gets beat up by life.
And it’s hard work.
That’s the bottom line, and the real reason for my blog. Weight Watchers, bless its corporate heart,
tries very hard to make weight loss pleasant and palatable for the greatest
number of people. But we can sometimes
be lulled into thinking that it is therefore going to be easy.
It’s not. And as long
as we expect it to be and hope for it to be, we’ll flounder; maybe lose 5
pounds, relax, fall back into old habits, resentfully surrender
again, lose that same 5 pounds... you know the drill.
It’s hard work. It’s “toil
and effort, labor and strife”. It’s even
“bitter toil” sometimes.
And it is so worth it. With all my heart, I wish for all of us that “splendid, ultimate triumph”... our health, the gift of being fully alive.
And it is so worth it. With all my heart, I wish for all of us that “splendid, ultimate triumph”... our health, the gift of being fully alive.
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