Today’s post will not directly address the 2024 presidential election. I’ve posted about politics more than I want to the last couple of posts.
However, the election does offer a contrast that I think should help folks understand what “strength” is. The word “strength” gets thrown around a lot during election cycles.
Strength has many definitions. The graphic that opens this post offers one perspective. In fact, it offers a perspective that I think many people recognize when they see it on display.
Strength isn’t about winning. It’s not just about besting your opponents. It takes strength to accept the challenge. It takes more strength to accept defeat gracefully, and even more strength to be humble and gracious in victory.
It takes strength to empathize with people in pain or distress. It is weakness to ridicule people or other living beings out of a false sense of superiority.
This is why we admire people who are gracious in both triumph and defeat. It takes strength and character to be the bigger person no matter the circumstances.
It takes more strength to control your emotions than to let them control you. That doesn’t mean men shouldn’t cry in front of other people. If those tears are being shed in compassion for others and not for yourself, then that is strength.
It’s strength to seek power in order to do something in service to others rather than in service to themselves.
False strength is easy to recognize because it seldom survives true challenges. Real strength always rises to challenges.
Choose the kind of strength that matters, endures, and lifts others up.
Always.
-The Rational Ram
The Rational Ram 
