My friend, Jane Monteagle, sent me this link to a TED talk featuring Diana Nyad, the 64-year-old woman who swam the 110 miles from Cuba to Florida in August of this year (her 5th attempt), and I must say, take the time to watch it. Anybody who thinks that once you’ve hit 60, it’s time to hang up your spurs will get a swift kick in the butt once you hear this fearless woman speak of her epic journey to make her dream come true.
Nyad references a quote from Teddy Roosevelt and I have included the entire quote below. It will also give you a nice push forward, just in case you’re getting complacent or just plain depressed because you have not yet reached those dreams you may have set for yourself at an earlier time. Jane sent this talk to me, I know, because I continue to dream of writing a truly fine novel (or better yet, many fine novels) and also cultivating a significant readership. I know that is a dream of hers, as well, and of many of my writing friends. Diana Nyad provides a living, breathing example of someone who never gave up, and is now here to tell all of us what it’s like to actually achieve her long-held dream.
It’s good to be reminded just before the beginning of the New Year that we can re-ignite those dreams that have long been languishing. This could be the year, my friends. This could be the year. After all, why not?
Here is the quote from Roosevelt:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. — Theodore Roosevelt
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