Opportunities are usually disguised as hard
work, so most people don't recognize them. - Ann Landers
Theodore Roosevelt…our
26th president had an amazing life.
His younger years were largely shaped based on his poor health. He would often have severe asthma attacks and
occasionally have nighttime asthma attacks that would appear as if someone was
trying to smother him. Even with his
poor health, he was a very inquisitive and energetic child.
Through
his 60 years, he accomplished many things according to various sources:
- studied biology at Harvard
- wrote over 35 books
- read over 10,000 books
- established the Rough Riders
- won the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War
- worked as state legislator, police commissioner, and governor in New York
- worked on his ranch in the Dakotas
- was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy
- war hero
- hunted big game
- explored and named an uncharted Amazonian river
- was the youngest president
- became the first president to fly in a plane
- became the first president to leave the country in order to oversee the production of the Panama Canal
How do you think he was
able to accomplish so many things in life?
He developed the habit of the strenuous life philosophy. Here is an excerpt from a speech he gave in
Chicago on April 10, 1899:
I
wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the
strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach
that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy
peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from
bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. – The
Strenuous Life – Theodore Roosevelt
With his
health problems growing up, he decided not to be one that would sit back,
procrastinate and not take action. He
would often take on tasks that most men winced at because he believed in the
strenuous life. Because of this
philosophy, he developed a unique self-discipline and many habits that will be
discussed in the coming weeks.
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