Are You Surrendering Your "Staying Power?"

Rev. Harry Emerson Fosdick on the importance of "staying power."

Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote of the distinction between "starting power" and "staying power." I had been trying to put into words the effect of people's opinions expressed "in the raw" on social media on both myself and others around me. Sometimes it feels as though the "staying power" of whole generations is being attacked by this new outlet of unchecked, unverified, and too-many-times illiterate, opinions of the opinionated.

After reading this excerpt from Dr. Fosdick's book, "The Power to See It Through," I know I need to refresh my "staying power."

This is a short excerpt from his book, "The Power to See It Through."

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"To give a child a good start, we say, is the most essential benediction that can be bestowed upon him or her. This emphasis  is profoundly important and it represents truth, just not the whole truth. …​ The qualities which make a good start possible are not identical with the qualities which see life through to the end. In no realm are "starting power" and "staying power" the same thing. ​… However beautiful one's beginning, nothing matters much in human life without a good end. … 

"Staying power is associated with a certain central integrity of conscience. Whatever else life may give or may deny, one thing is absolutely indispensable—that a man should not break faith with himself, that he should keep his honor bright. … that whatever else may fail he should not inwardly be a failure. …

​"Whatever happens, a man living on high terms with himself, is the essence of "staying power."

Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Power to See It Through, 1935

"However beautiful one's beginning, nothing matters much in human life without a good end."