Bill Duke is a serious dude who doesn’t mince many words. His interviews for the Film Courage channel on YouTube have been must-watch material for me since day one. This one in particular has a lot of good stuff in it, but in particular, this attitude stands out…
When the Boogieman has his foot on your throat, you have two choices – give up or bit his toe.
Now, that’s a terrible paraphrasing, but it works for me. The point is, when something seems like it has you down for the count there’s always a choice – give up or fight back. Notice that there’s no guarantee that it will do any good or that there’s even a vague chance it’ll lead to saving yourself or victory. It’s more about how you choose to live than about that. Are you ready to cave or willing to fight even when it’s absolutely hopeless?
Back when I used to play pick-up basketball, my only valuable skills were: 1) a natural tendency to be in the way – which meant I was pretty good at defense, and 2) I was too dumb to stop running. You might score a bunch of point on me, but I was going to run with you all day until I dropped. There’s times when I see that in my life now – that really the only reason I’m still walking around is because I was too stubborn or dumb to lay down. I don’t pretend that makes me brave or brilliant – it just happens to be my tendency and it’s served me well.