I’ve never been a big fan of Teddy Roosevelt.
I should probably rephrase that. I’ve never been a big fan of Teddy Roosevelt, the politician. I’m mostly alone in that regard, as many people, including most historians, widely regard him as one of the nation’s best presidents. I don’t see it that way, but that’s OK.
Teddy Roosevelt the person is a whole other story. You don’t have to agree with his politics to see what an inspirational person he was. Starting life as a sickly, asthmatic child, he grew to be the very epitome of twentieth century manhood, establishing himself at various points in his life as a statesman, an adventurer, a soldier, a scholar, and a writer. There’s a reason so many biographies have been written about him and we have an undying fascination with his life story. It’s because he is so intriguing. We admire Teddy because he did things others didn’t do. Whether it was charging up San Juan Hill or trekking deep into the Amazon, Teddy did things the rest of us only daydream about.
The thing that I find most fascinating about all this was that Teddy didn’t see himself as exceptional. Or at least he said he didn’t. On the contrary, I was recently reading a passage from his autobiography, and found him writing a compelling explanation for the things he did.
Teddy wrote that there are two kinds of successes. The first kind is the kind that can only be achieved by certain, exceptional individuals who have abilities the rest of us don’t have. A few weeks ago, New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge hit a 495 foot home run. Never mind that only a select few are even capable of playing baseball at a major league level; even among those, the ability to crush a ball 495 feet is not exactly common. That type of success just requires the right person.
But the second type of success is different, wrote Roosevelt.
But much the commoner type of success in every walk of life and in every species of effort is that which comes to the man who differs from his fellows not by the kind of quality which he possesses but by the degree of development which he has given that quality. This kind of success is open to a large number of persons, if only they seriously determine to achieve it. It is the kind of success which is open to the average man of sound body and fair mind, who has no remarkable mental or physical attributes, but who gets just as much as possible in the way of work out of the aptitudes that he does possess.
Roosevelt attributed all of his success to this second type. It didn’t require talent, it didn’t require exceptionalism, it required nothing but human will and the perseverance to stick with something until they achieved what they wanted. To act, rather than waiting around to be acted upon. This was the root of his fearlessness.
There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, ranging from grizzly bears to “mean” horses and gun-fighters; but by acting as if I was not afraid I gradually ceased to be afraid. Most men can have the same experience if they choose. They will first learn to bear themselves well in trials which they anticipate and which they school themselves in advance to meet. After a while the habit will grow on them, and they will behave well in sudden and unexpected emergencies which come upon them unawares.
Fearlessness, Teddy said, did not come to him naturally. He experienced all sorts of things of which he was afraid. The key, however, was refusing to let the fear paralyze him from moving forward. If you steel yourself and meet the challenges you are facing head on, eventually that fearlessness that you pretend to have will become a habit, and that fear will melt away.
It’s not an easy lesson to learn. It’s one I’m still working on. Fear usually develops in us at an early age. I’ve seen this in my oldest son, the way he worries at times whether a specific action will cause “everybody to laugh at me,” in his words. The truth is, though, most of our fears are unfounded. We let our perception of what could happen keep us from achieving what WOULD happen if we only pursued it.
My challenge to readers today is, don’t let that be true of you. In the coming week, do ONE thing that you’ve been afraid to do. Make a call you’ve been afraid to make. Attend a meetup where you don’t know anyone. Do an activity that you’ve been wanting to try but have been too afraid to do. You will find, like Teddy did, that you too can live fearlessly.
The Discourse 