"Amid world's challenges,
never give up.
Never. Never."
Today's Inquirer included an essay by Mr. Bogle that was adapted from a commencement adress given at Trinity College on May 23. As I was reading I thought of how often the odds seem so hopeless that it is tempting to just give up and bail. I have long admired Mr. Bogle for his lifelong commitment to those "old school" qualities of courage, honesty, integrity, humility and service to others that are so hard to find these days. He reminded me of my late father who had always demonstrated those same qualities.
It's a good essay from a good and wise man and carries a message worth remembering when things look grim.
I hope you'll read it - click here
"To have striven, to have made the effort,
to have been true to certain ideals -
this alone is worth the struggle." William Penn
btw - there's a story that he got the title to his latest book from a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller who were attending a party hosted by a billionaire. After Vonnegut told Heller that their host earns more in a day than Heller ever earned from Catch-22, Heller said that he has something that the billionaire will never have: enough.
Yup. Sounds just like Dad - 'cept he never would've hung out with Vonnegut.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post, J.
ReplyDeleteExcept for the references in that speech to Winston Churchill who was notoriously a militarist and an aristocratic believer in social hierarchy which favored the rich and powerful------the admonition to continue against the odds is a message we all need to hear.
It is very easy to throw in the towel:
especially when it appears the fight rigged and the outcome already in the record books.
In fact. . . the logical thing is to give up.
Which is why people who rail against such an incredibly biased system loaded with impossibly adverse odds of success need rely not on their heads, but on the one thing they have that the others do not, their hearts.
Our hearts will not only guide us, but inspire us onward. When we do this with love for our planet, our fellow creatures, our children yet born . . . . . . . we will never give up.