The point of the PSA was to encourage folks to keep on keeping on despite obvious shortcomings and failures. The PSA used the 16th President of the United States Abraham Lincoln as the example.
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| Maybe I should have been a logger? |
Lincoln is often cited for his never quit attitude. Never giving up is an admirable trait, but at some point one has to think that all the trial and tribulation isn't worth it. If you ask me, Lincoln is the LAST person our society should hold up as a symbol of all things good in staying the course.
Lincoln battled a nervous breakdown, lost numerous elections for state and national offices, failed at business twice, etc.
"But Scott, he was young during all of that and he eventually became president."
OK fine. He became president after years of defeat and failure on many different levels. But was it all worth it? Seriously?
Everything he did led up to this ...
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| WOW! THAT STINGS!!!! |
Work hard, stay focused on your goals and get shot in the back of the head by a jealous a-hole.
Getting shot in the head can be either literally or figuratively. Either way you're pretty much screwed.
Now there's advice much more useful that that frigging cat hanging from the tree limb.
Although he did free an entire race of people and held the country together through almost inevitable division before getting shot in the head. So there's that. I mean if you look at it from a slightly broader less long-life-goal sort of perspective. And really, you can't really be doing much good unless Someone wants to shoot you in the head. If that was the main motivator you could barely drive to the store. =)
ReplyDeleteYeah it got him shot, but it made him immortal, just like the 300 Spartans who defended the pass.
ReplyDeleteDo you think he did it for the slaves, or for his country, or for personal glory, or because Shirley McClain told him to? (yes, good ol' Honest Abe had "visions" and he and Mary both had some fascination with the occult).
ReplyDeleteI have the utmost respect for Lincoln and gratitude that he ended slavery (but my jury is still out on whether our big, unified government is working). I'm just wondering whether motivation should be a factor when we consider, for the annals of history, which men where perservering heroes, or which men were so obsessed with greatness that they pushed on through staggering odds not so much because they believed in their goals, but because they feared failure. Just a thought.