The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.
It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life.
But it ain’t about how hard ya hit.
It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward.
How much you can take and keep moving forward.
That’s how winning is done! — Rocky Balboa
We know what it is to be hit.
In the 1870s, when we had just begun, we were hit with a devastating grasshopper plague. People were literally starving to death out here. We almost were finished before we began.
In 1915, much of Great Bend was smashed by a tornado.
In the 20s and 30s, we were staggered by the one-two punches of dust bowl and depression.
In the early 1950s, we lost our Army airbase.
In the mid-80s, it was the oil and ag bust.
In the latter 90s and this past decade, business losses, many of which happened because of decisions that were made on the other side of the country, hit us.
We know what it is to be hit.
Now, we have to remember, especially after the news of this week was received, we have to remember how to get hit and move forward.
Every time we keep digging in and moving forward, every new step we take, is the act of winning.
Remember these words:
In the battle of life, it is not the critic who counts; nor the one who points out how the strong person stumbled, or where the doer of a deed could have done better.
The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who does actually strive to do deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotion, spends oneself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at worst, if he or she fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. — President Theodore Roosevelt
We owe it to those who kept the faith in those other struggles, to continue to keep the faith that our community will continue to grow, even in the face of challenges.
It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward.
Now it’s time for us to keep moving forward —  how ever we feel.
— Chuck Smith