"It's a Great Life, If You Don't Weaken"

I heard this the other day (the saying above) and have thought much about it since.

I did a little research, and it appears that the phrase originated as the title of a strip written by a cartoonist from New York in 1915, and later became a rallying cry for soldiers in the first World War. Whether this is true or not, I found myself imagining soldiers penned up in foxholes and trenches in the dead of Europe’s winter thinking about home and their families and warm pies on window ledges and reminding themselves not to weaken, lest they forget it’s a great life they lead.

If this so-called rallying cry seems oddly phrased, perhaps it’s because we are all tempted to finish that sentence differently. Maybe not in public, but to ourselves, we know that our “great” lives are more contingent on circumstances than character. It’s a great life if you have friends. It’s a great life if you have money. It’s a great life if you have your health and a decent job and live comfortably and really that’s not too much to ask.

But for many of us, myself included, the idea of life is not so “great” at the thought of losing your decent job or your comfortable house, or any of the other things on which we build our sense of contentedness. Not that we should welcome suffering, but is it possible that we’ve become so averse to it that its presence upends our ability to enjoy life – or worse – to appreciate it? What happened to the idea of resolve? What happened to the idea that a great life is only a matter of having the fortitude and strength of character to withstand the pressure of reality? Why is it now that we look at life with so many conditions on it before it can be labeled “good”, and why do we have so many requirements for our own happiness? Is not having one good day of existence, one good meal, one instance of shared love, one moment where a cool breeze on a cool night washes over you when you’re completely and totally free – is that not good enough? Must you and all your friends and relatives live to be 80 in comfort and harmony? Must you be well liked? Must you make enough money so that you don’t have to “worry” about it – is that when you’ll have a good life?

Not weakening isn’t about having perfect self-discipline or never failing yourself. At least not for me. For me it’s about not losing sight of the perspective that makes possible a “It's a Great Life” philosophy in a world like this one, a world where so many people pay so dearly for just the chance at life. The other day on the way home from work I heard a story on the radio about a man in India who traveled a 1000 miles from his remote village to a city where he could receive chemotherapy, leaving behind his wife and two children, living outside the clinic because he had nowhere else to go, spending a third of his annual wages on just a short supply of what were largely outdated cancer drugs. As the reality of that man’s situation hit me, I felt the deepest sense of guilt – not because if I were to fall sick I would have access to the best treatment 5 minutes down the road, after which I could return to a very comfortable home – but because I wouldn’t care. None of it would matter unless everything was going to be okay. Because ultimately I’m not strong enough to be okay with not being okay. And that is such a sad way to be, because there is so much more.

It is a great life. Period. And if we’re strong enough not to weaken, we just might realize it one day.