Becoming the champion of your dreams

A trail in a small park near our home leads downward, through woods, and then has 52 mostly railroad-tie steps back up to the road. While my speed up the stairs is hardly a run, my near-daily routine takes me up the stairs at a sufficient clip to require at least two minutes for me to recover my breath. It’s my cardio-self-test — and a bit more.

The “bit-more” is inspired by the movie “Rocky,” and the 72 steps at the front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art actor Sylvester Stallone rapidly ascended ultimately in triumph in that movie. Ever since climbing those steps with our son years ago, when the occasion occurs and a piano is handy, he plays that inspiring theme song for me while I climb whatever stairs are then available. His teenage daughter plays that tune for me on her harp as I climb stairs — a beautiful moment in all regards.

Since this early October has been pock-marked by the horrific massacre in Israel, and a prior early-October marked a forever tragedy in our family, I am pleased that Philadelphia is now celebrating Rocky Day each early October, about 50 years after he made that immortal climb. Stallone noted, as reported in People on December 6, “…that [climb] changed my life…one is physical, the other is emotional and spiritual…you should take your children…they won’t be the same…When you get to the top, you feel inspired…you feel like you can be the champion of your dreams.”

However, neither Stallone, nor fellow tough guy actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, let us off easy. In that People article, Stallone is also quoted as saying, “Life is a fight. It’s a tough fight, so get ready. You’re gonna win some, and your gonna lose a lot…But the real victory is never giving up and going the distance for yourself, [and] your loved ones….” Schwarzenegger seems to chime in, when as quoted in the Yakima Herald on October 6, he remonstrates us, “You have to be able to accept pain, misery and discomfort…the more you experience the things you really don’t like, the more you can go and the tougher you get and the more you can handle…Don’t start creating a generation of wimps and weak people…”

Good, tough advice from a couple of old guys.

However, it’s one thing for a couple of wizened actors to offer advice, it’s another thing to put your life on the line and get wrongfully jailed. A woman is showing us all in her actions what those actors are preaching.

Because she was prevented by the Iranian authorities to be present, smuggled out of her jail cell was this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Iranian activist, Narges Mohammadi’s speech accepting the award. It was delivered in Oslo by her children. As reported by CNN on December 10, Narges “described [her actions as part of] the Iranian “people’s determination to ‘dismantle’ the ‘despotism and obstruction…[the] Resistance is alive, and the struggle endures….” She is obviously calling for bolder action when, “She called on Western governments not to ‘postpone democracy’ and avoid adopting ‘strategies focused on the continuation of the Islamic Republic’s rule.”

To me, even though she and her carefully crafted words seem to be largely ignored, Narges conveyed more forcefully a call to action than even Ukraine's President Volodomyr Zelensky immortal words, “I don’t need a ride, I need more ammunition.”

Perhaps as to Iran we should take to heart, and well considered action, the late Sen. John McCain’s immortal parody of the Beach Boys song, “Barbara Ann.”

Timidity in failing to take healthy actions can breed disaster, whether it’s at the playground, kicking the can down the road regarding Iran, or ignoring for decades the chilling of open dialog at our universities.

I am pleased that both the Wall Street Journal in their editorial on December 11 and Fareed Zakaria in his CNN opinion piece on December 8 jumped on the recent equivocating answers given by the presidents of Harvard, Penn and MIT in Congressional testimony to a simple question, asked with only a very slight variation, “Does call for the genocide of Jews violate [Penn’s, Harvard’s, or MIT’s] code of conduct?”

Zakaria noted that our “…elite universities…have gone from centers of excellence to institutions pushing political agendas...good intentions have morphed into a dogmatic ideology and turned these universities into places where the pervasive goals are political and social engineering, not academic merit.” He quotes Van Jones, ‘The point of college is to keep you physically safe but intellectually unsafe.” Perhaps, the Journal editorial says it best, “…as everyone paying attention knows, these schools don’t protect speech they disagree with. They punish it.”

I wish that everyone can “champion their dreams” this Christmas season, especially those hostages underground in Gaza, and one of the bravest of modern women, Narges Mohammadi. 

Contact Larry Little at larrylittle46@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Becoming the champion of your dreams