Halftime Speech

This is the 183rd. day of the calendar year (184th., if it is a leap year).

We are half-way through.

Go back to your New Year's resolutions, if you made them. How are you doing with them? Which ones have you successfully completed? Which ones are still a work in progress but moving steadily toward your goal? Which ones have faltered, even though they still are worthy of your effort?

Take an honest look at where you were, where you are, and where you would like to be. Have you seen a change, even though it may seem imperceptible? Perhaps now is the time to renew your resolve and commitment, whether with what you are striving to accomplish or some new challenge.

As Theodore Roosevelt stated, humanity is at its best when it is in striving for something:

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 and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, 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 he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Go Forward.

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Originally posted 7/3/2006, including the year and this {UPDATE (7/5): I goofed. July 2 is the half-way point of the year. The message still stands.}

Re-posted 7/2/2021.

Re-posted 7/2/2022.