Think about the fight. There is no tomorrow.
My biological father died last month. He made a lot of bad choices and left behind a complicated legacy that I’m trying to process. He had a “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze” mentality to life, which extended to everything from relationships to fishing. If it got difficult, he “gave it away to the universe.”
I finally recognized that same mentality in myself in my 20s, and wrote about it previously. I have this tendency to want to quit, or not try hard, or move on from difficult things. It’s led to imposter syndrome and insecurity. But when I finally recognized it for what it was, I decided to fight it.
In my 30s, I started lifting weights for the first time. I started writing. I finished my master’s in divinity. I became a father. I celebrated 13 years of marriage with my wife. I started training and competing in Brazilian jiu-jitsu (shout-out to all the other ultra-heavyweight Masters 2 blue belts). We entered foster care ministry last October, which, for the uninitiated, is like getting stabbed in the heart constantly by the legal system that doesn’t seem to be designed to actually help kids.
Hard things.
Dad didn’t understand any of this. He quit rather than fight. If a relationship got difficult, as every one does, he left it (my mom was wife 4 out of 10, but that’s another post). Even though he was at one time a backpacker and loved the outdoors, he withdrew from strenuous life of any kind. For example, one year he sent me a custom fly rod one of his ex-wives had gifted him. It was a handsome gift. I asked why he was giving it to me, and he said, “If I want to catch a fish, I’ll go to Costco.”
I don’t want to shame or dishonor him, but I want the warning to be fresh for me and for others. Do hard things. Think about the fight. There is no tomorrow. I wish I had been told to do hard things at an early age, but I’m glad I was told when I was, else I might have puttered away my life and legacy. It’s part of our family code now, because I want my sons to be better than I am, and I want a legacy less complicated and discarded than my father’s was.
Do hard things.
Work through the problem.
Work and play as to the Lord.
How does this impact tomorrow?
Our family code.
As every death illustrates, we don’t live forever. Memento mori. Memento vivere. Carpe Diem.
I don’t know who else needs to hear this, so here you go. The battle cry, the point of this clip and this copy, is this: Step into the ring. Think about the fight. There is no tomorrow.
This article also appears on my author website, George Cottonwood Books.
Awake! Put on strength! 