On Strength

Strength comes in many forms, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. It defines a person, a team, a culture, a nation. We know when we see it, and we revere it, if centered. It is not an accident. A nation can lose it, as can a person. A nation can regain it, as can a person. For survival, we must look for it, work at it, regain it, and then teach it. We can, me and you. America needs that of us.

Where are the examples? All around us. We should look to those who live strength, now and before. They teach tenacity, risk-taking, patience, persistence, self-discipline, and consistency. They teach how to jump for the limb, fall, get up, return to climbing, fear not, and succeed.

Examples of strength – all kinds – appear in lots of places, sports, military, law enforcement, business, parenting, politics, and day-to-day life, but strength appears most in adversity. In lives of others, as in our own, we love to see strength. Strength is about being your best you.

So, how do we do that? When a challenge is physical, attitudinal, emotional, or lies in another realm, financial, spiritual, academic, exhaustion from the madness, missing inspiration, creeping ambivalence, we must shake it off. The shake-off is the start, taking action.

On a personal level, the gritty Arnold Schwarzenegger, rags to riches story, said: “When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” Like his big screen alter ego, Sylvestor Stallone, another rags to riches, it is in how many punches you can take. Not quitting is what makes you strong.

Nationally, John F. Kennedy nailed it: “If we are strong, our strength will speak for itself. If we are weak, words will be of no help.” Words would not have saved his shipmates on PT 109.

Strength can be born of simple encouragement. In my youth, kids were pushed outdoors, so we biked, rambled the woods, played pick-up, went fishing, explored the dump, and got home for dinner.

What did we learn? Independence, decision-making, accountability, responsibility, what to do and not do, risk-taking, how to get injured and not care, freedom to fail, resilience – strength.

While only a few are good athletes, and not me, we all played outdoors, got exhausted, recovered, stumbled, fumbled, and got back up, stronger for the experience.

Tom Brady said a week ago: “To be successful at anything, the truth is you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t: consistent, determined, and willing to work for it.” We got that message growing up, because it was taught by example.

Even in 1985, a child played outside 30 hours a week, 1,560 hours a year. Today, they play outside maybe five hours a week, 250 hours a year – not the same. Texting is not a sport.

Strength comes in many flavors, often reinforcing each other, tenacity, patience, selflessness, daring dreams, choosing the steep trail, the hard over easy, right over wrong, now versus later.

As Rosa Parks remarked, strength of another sort, like modern parents at school board meetings or defenders of life: “You must never be fearful about what you are doing…when it’s right.”

Therein lies strength of the moral kind, taught in the Old Testament and New, from Christianity to Marcus Aurelius to J.R.R. Tolkien. “Look well into yourself…,” wrote Aurelius, a stoic Roman, “...for there is a source of strength which will always spring up, if you will always look there.” So, we must dare to look there, do what we can, in so doing that teach: It can be done.

Whimsically, Tolkien – the artful creator of Gandolf and Shadow-fax, Bilbo Baggins, and Frodo, observed: “It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.” How true, and no wonder that he forever counted C.S. Lewis his friend, author of Narnia.

To me, strength begins with daring to identify big goals, anticipating some, inheriting others, striving to do what we should, not sure if we can, summoning courage. With that sort of conviction, relentless focus, hope and prayer, we often find we are there.

Beyond the likes of Tom Brady, sportsmen and women model the idea, Riley Gaines, Caitlin Clark, distance runners, aspiring Olympians. Look back, Jesse Owens, John Landy, Cal Ripken, and the inimitable Lou Gehrig. They all teach, or taught by living strength.

One of the best ballplayers, Gehrig was humble, a powerhouse who died young at 37, from the disease that now bears his name. He never gave up, never made excuses, never looked back, and loved life. He radiated strength start to finish. So, we all have our examples…

Not performing as he wished, benching himself, he spoke to a full stadium. “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” That was 85 years ago, yet we still remember.

Bottom line: Strength, of all kinds, is learned – by those who want it, work for it, appreciate it. We must do that daily. Why? Because we know how. And doing, we teach it too, me and you.