From Sam Gamgee to the stay-at-home mom, you can always find something good to work hard for.
In the movie “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,” Frodo finds himself at the end of his rope, declaring himself too battered and exhausted to continue his quest. His companion, Sam Gamgee,
offers encouragement by reminding him of the old tales, “the ones full of darkness and danger.”
“Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t,“ he said. ”They kept going. Because they were holding onto something.”
When Frodo asks, “What are we holding onto, Sam?” the wise and courageous Sam replies, “That there’s some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”
Just before his death in Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” Robert Jordan thinks
near-identical words: “The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.”
Lately, we Americans and, I suspect, many people from around the globe, are struggling to see good in the world and things worth fighting for. Two men I spoke with recently, both on the political right, believe our country has reached a point of no return and that the American experiment is at an end. An
October 2022 Harris Poll, commissioned by the American Psychological Association (APA), mirrors some of their despair, finding that Americans are extremely unhappy with their political leadership, deeply pessimistic about the future, concerned about crime and violence, pinched by inflation, and stressed in their daily lives. The headlines of 2024 offer little reassurance that things have changed for the better.
Near the end of this report, the APA includes a section on taking action during times of uncertainty with some helpful advice, such as “take control where you can” and “don’t look for a rescuer.” The gist of this counsel is to build resilience and to avoid feeling powerless in whatever trials come our way.
Although these measures can be stout shields against the hammer blows of the headlines and daily life, the most vital element is missing: our sense of mission. Why do battle in the first place? What makes all that sweat, stress, and strain worthwhile?
In a
scene from “Cinderella Man,” boxer James Braddock has a run of bad luck during the Great Depression and struggles to put food on the table for his family. When Braddock’s luck turns and he finds himself about to fight in a heavyweight championship, a reporter asks him, “How do you explain your comeback?” Braddock lists several reasons, pauses, and adds, “And this time around, I know what I’m fighting for.” The reporter says, “Oh, yeah. What’s that, Jimmy?” Braddock responds: “Milk.”
That’s a code word for his hungry children. He has something worth fighting for.
Likewise, a friend of mine, a man in his mid-30s, manages a construction crew from dawn to dusk. He knows why he’s busting himself five and six days a week: to provide for his wife and four little ones, with one more child on the way. That’s his fight, that’s his world, and I see the good in it every time they invite me to supper.
This man and millions of other Americans don’t regard themselves as particularly noble or heroic. When they think of their tiny corner of the world and their place in it, most of them at best might answer with the
description Shakespeare’s Henry V gives to Montjoy, the French herald at the Battle of Agincourt:
We are but warriors for the working-day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirch'd
With rainy marching in the painful field ...
The harried office manager who’s at his desk 60 hours a week working to keep his company alive for his employees and the sleep-deprived mother who gives her all for her children are both warriors in a painful field. Like so many, they sink exhausted into bed at night, knowing that tomorrow only brings more of the same.
But though they may not see it, by their daily combat, these foot soldiers on life’s battlefields underscore and affirm Sam Gamgee’s words: that there’s good in the world, and that it’s worth fighting for.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
