Make People Tough Again

I think we can generally agree: most modern people are... what’s a word that means weaker than feeble?

Your day was challenging. But tough? Nah. The girl in this video is tough: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGqRtD8nUuK/.

For most people out there, all you have to do is show up. Don’t eat like a jerk. Physically exert yourself on occasion. That’s about it. That’s not tough. Sure, life is going to come and knock you around a bit. Who ya gonna emulate then? Someone like this, with more challenges than you? Someone whose resourcefulness and discipline convicts your lack of toughness? Or some famous person with a personal chef, unlimited resources, and an in-house team of assistants? Someone who helps you play the victim narrative? Someone whose example keeps you weak af?

Every challenge we in the modern industrial world face, someone somewhere has done 1000 times more with 1 million times less. Scratch that. MANY people EVERY WHERE have done more with less. No matter how bad it gets, you don’t have it THAT bad. Study the history of the slave trade. Study the history of child armies. Study history. Period.

People are ready to leap off the ledge because an email got lost or WiFi is running slow. Try to think of what it felt like storming the beaches of Normandy, knowing you will LIKELY die, and there is a very good chance that it’ll be for nothing, while a totalitarian takes over the world.

I get it. Putting down the cake is unfamiliar. Training in a way that makes your better than when you were younger is uncommon. Hearing the news is frustrating. But none of that is tough. Your belief that progress is a product not a process is hubris and a mental defect. The fight for decency and humanity was never over, nor should our effort ever be. Thinking we should rest on laurels is immoral. It’s base.

The girl in the video is tough. She’s got a smile ear to ear while facing more difficulty than most people imagine. No product. She’s working the process. Likewise, we have got to be tough enough to KNOW that no matter how bad it gets, we can overcome. We WILL overcome.

Make people tough again.