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Archive for June, 2007
HOW HARD YOU GET HIT
2 CORINTHIANS 4:8-9As a father, I’ve always considered the most important lesson to teach
my children is the principle of perseverance — staying in the battle as long as it takes to win, getting back up after you get knocked down, trying as many times as necessary.
There’s a scene in the movie Rocky Balboa that’s about this — Rocky is teaching this lesson to his son, Robert. This is the final movie in the Rocky series; he’s now past his prime (for an athlete), in his fifties, a little punchy, and has just decided to attempt a comeback. Robert tries to talk him out of it, saying it isn’t fair to him, that he is trying to build a life for himself, and he’s tired of living in the old man’s shadow. He tells Rocky how this will hold him back. Rocky says to him…
“Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place. And I don’t care how tough you are. It will beat you to your knees and keep you permanently there if you let it.
“You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life, but it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.
Visits from the tooth fairy brought a toothless grin to my face as a child but as I get older visits from the tooth fairy are not as welcomed as they once where.
A toothless grin was cute on a small boy but as a grown man those missing teeth are a tell-tale sign of the advancement of age. I recall being told as a child to brush my teeth in order to prevent the painful consequences of not doing so. Tooth decay was not something as a child I thought much about. Visits to the dentist seemed a waste of time when I was younger but those trips to the tooth doctor for preventive maintenance helped defer tooth decay for many years to follow.
Well those years have come and gone and visits to the dentist have been less frequent then needed and tooth decay has taken its toil on my once pearly whites. Not much to do at this point but have the broken teeth extracted leaving gaps in the pearly gates. All the whitening strips on the store shelf can not restore that which has fallen away from decay.
Thoughts and views as seen from the resident raptor. Reflecting on life and the world as I see it.
