Wherever You Wash Ashore, Start From There

The Philosophic Art of Beginning

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As artillery shells exploded on the beach around him, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. knew he had a problem. 

The vanguard of the allied attack against Nazi Germany, which Roosevelt was leading, had come ashore far from its target. His soldiers were pinned under heavy fire and panicking.  

The 56-year-old son of President Teddy Roosevelt was the oldest man on Utah Beach that day. He walked with a cane and was battling a heart condition. Yet he calmly ignored the bullets and shrapnel, drew his pistol, and limped off to find his target. 

He returned to his panicking troops soon after and calmly explained that everything would be fine. He’d located the causeway that was their target and devised a plan. 

"We'll start the war from right here!" he cheerfully told them.

Each regiment coming ashore was welcomed by a barrage of enemy artillery and a calm, smiling Roosevelt, who recited bits of poetry, cracked jokes, and directed them on their way.

It’s an approach to life that the Stoic philosopher and emperor Marcus Aurelius would have appreciated.

“The cucumber is bitter? Then cast it aside,” he wrote. “There are brambles in the path? Step out of the way. That will suffice, and you need not ask in addition, ‘Why did such things ever come into the world?” (Meditations 8.50)

Have you washed up broken and battered, far from your original goal? Do you lack the required expertise, or feel like your years weighing you down? 

That’s ok. We can only, as Roosevelt knew, start from where we are.

Wherever you’ve washed up, take a moment to get your bearings, check to see what’s in line with your values, and then launch the war you need to wage from right there.