January 12


“The leaders of the new societies would do wrong if they tried to send the citizens to sleep in a state of happiness too uniform and peaceful, but that they should sometimes give them difficult and dangerous problems to face, to rouse ambition and give it a field of action.” — Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Young America had many challenges: foreign diplomacy, rocky relationships with Native Americans, survival in harsh winters and, eventually, a great tract of land that needed explorers and settlers.

Can you imagine: leaving all of your comforts, traveling on a wagon for weeks, coming to a deserted, unmapped forest, and starting a new life, maybe just you and your family? It may not sound like fun, but in this way many early Americans helped make our nation what it is today; there could be no highways without Lewis and Clark first.

What about you? I’m guessing that either:

  1. Your life has been hard, and you face challenges constantly. Fortune is not kind.
  2. Or your life is— generally — easy and comfortable. Your struggles are really quite small. Fortune has smiled on you.

I can more often identify with the second of these: I have money, health, family, friends, leisure, and all that I need to be content.

But, “Only through struggle have I found rest”, and only through struggle can we grow into our potential. Those early Americans, if they had had the attitude of many of us today, when confronted with journeying west, might have said, “That sounds interesting, but I’m too busy right now”, or “I don’t know how to build a log cabin, so that’s not for me”.

But they didn’t.

If we want strong bodies, we have to challenge them with hard exercise; if we want strong minds, we have to push them to learn and understand; if we want strong spirits we have to follow the proper exercises; and if we want a strong community we need collective challenges, the honesty to look them in the face, and the motivation to conquer them.

Some days I’m really tired of being comfortable. I want a challenge, but can’t quite make myself do it alone. I need help to do the hard things.

Will you help me face my challenges? How can I push you? Do you know how to cut down a tree? And I hear rabbit stew is delicious!