Keep Going

Waiting for the Thaw (Arctic Whaling Scene) by William Bradford, 1877 (public domain - Wikimedia Commons)

“Why, what’s the matter,That you have such a February face,So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”

— William Shakespeare, 1599

I’ve been down with the flu this week (specifically influenza A), which has curtailed the newsletter, podcast, and videos you normally see here.

It’s been a slog, but not as bad as my son had with it last week. At least we know how I got it.

Anyway, I realized that between the dystopian soap opera of the news cycles (you already know the themes; I won’t rehash them for you here), clients who are struggling with making progress, and my own bout with the flu, that we all need reassurance and encouragement to stay on the path.

February — the shortest month — is something of an elixir that brings relief after the toxic cocktail of January, whose ingredients include New Year’s resolutions, little daylight, and what feels like 87 days in the month. February promises to treat us better with ever-lengthening days and the last week of the month nearly visible from the first, as we find our equilibrium. And those who endured a dry January find their pools once again filled with inebriants.

It’s all too easy to be waylaid by temptations, distractions, lack of focus, or anything that takes us away from our purpose.

During these times — especially during such times — we need a reminder to say true to our values.

For that, let’s turn to the closing stanzas of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound (1820):

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.

How appropriate that Ralph Vaughan Williams chose to use this as a narrative to open his Symphony No. 7 (‘Sinfonia Antartica’), originally written as the soundtrack for the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic.

It’s a humbling reminder that our struggles are not quite as Promethean as some who have trod before us.

You’ve got what it takes to keep going.

There’s so much to learn,