Resolve and Resiliency: American Style

“These are times that try men’s soul.” So wrote Thomas Paine in The American Crisis on December 19, 1776. Six days later on Christmas Night, General George Washington led his Continental Army command across the ice-choked Delaware River for a surprise attack on Hessian mercenaries who were carousing in their warm barracks in Trenton, NJ. It was a military stroke of genius, one that gave the struggling nascent independence movement hope.

A year to the day after Paine published his pamphlet, Washington and his 12,000 troops hunkered down for a challenging winter at Valley Forge where many went without proper footwear and warm clothing and about 2,000 died from dysentery and more. Yet they persevered.

The Continental Army for the most part consisted of everyday men—backwoodsmen, farmers, craftsmen—with little or no military training. But they understood that history had called upon them to fight for something greater than themselves: Freedom. And not just at the national level, but at the personal.

On this Christmas 248 years later, it’s timely to recall what Washington and the men and women fought and died for in the American Revolution. Like standing and removing one’s cap during the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” taking a few moments to reflect upon Washington’s feat should be requisite for every American on Christmas Day. For far too many take for granted the freedom the millions since Washington fought and many died for.  

From the outset, the Founders knew personal rights and liberties would need to be endlessly defended not just from abroad but from within. Unlike many Americans today, they knew their history. They also understood the “will to power,” as Friedrich Nietzsche called it a century later in “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” runs deep within the soul of men, and if it isn’t harnessed and redirected toward noble, unselfish pursuits, bad things happen at the hands of the unprincipled and unscrupulous. History had clearly shown that.

But some grow weary of the struggle and decide their and their fellow citizens’ rights and liberties aren’t worth defending despite Ben Franklin’s admonition that “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” They become willing to compromise and agreeable to watered-down versions of their inalienable rights that in their essence become like junk jewelry and cheap goods bought at dollar stores.

Paine took to task such people, calling them “the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot” who “shrink from the service of their country.”

“What we obtain too cheap,” he wrote, “we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”

When the head winds blow at gale force 24/7, it can try one’s soul. When that happens, the danger of falling into one of two extremes—denying reality and insisting everything will be all right or shrugging one’s shoulders and plaintively asking, “What’s the use?”—arises.

Brad Stulberg, a mental health authority, suggests an alternative in a New York Times essay: wise hope and action. By not looking at the anti-freedom forces through rose-colored lenses and by not giving into futility, he says a person is better able to “muster the strength, courage and resolve” to keep their focus on what they can control. The challenge for the individual then is identifying what is in their power and deciding on how to act on it.

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, a psychologist and Holocaust survivor, posits the most critical elements the prisoners and victims of the Nazis’ death camps needed for survival were resolve and resiliency. In short, never giving up. Just like Washington and his army.

Though circumstances were bleak that Christmas in 1776, Washington and his troops didn’t buckle. Like the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence who pledged their Lives, their Fortunes and their sacred Honor, they remained steeled in their resolve and resiliency. I seriously wonder how many today could claim likewise with a straight face.

History shows freedom-loving Americans are not a compliant but a feisty people. They don’t cave when confronted by anti-freedom forces. They stand strong and resolute because deep within their soul, they know it’s like Thomas Paine said: “For though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.”