Irish Rugby and Inspiration…
Listening to Donal Lenihan, Brent Pope, Cora Staunton and Pat McCabe on Sunday morning was like getting plugged in to a current of inspiration.
The enthusiasm of the rugby men, the sense of Staunton, the fluent eloquence of McCabe, all attested to an appetite for work; sheer, hard, persistent honest-to God graft.
It’s the constant message, do the work, get results. Apply yourself with a bit of will. You’ll pick up know-how. You’ll learn turns and ways to deal with obstacles and setbacks. You’ll learn more in a week of doing it, than in a year of thinking about it.
And that’s where the bit of discipline comes in; because then the application is reinforced with the priceless know-how.
The accumulation of small changes, minor modifications, refined ideas, all gather into a formidable force. You operate on a different level.
Whether the athletes spoke of the gruelling training, or McCabe of the sometimes slog of writing, all were emphatic on persistence.
This isn’t new. We’ve heard it before.
We’ve been told to practice, rehearse, drill, internalize, and above all, to do it, take action, make a start.
All four of Miriam O’Callaghan’s guests are doers. It was a worthwhile hour of listening.
To go back a hundred and eighty years, much the same was then said by the American poet H.W.Longfellow.
‘The lives of great men all remind us
We can live a life sublime
And departing, leave behind us,
Footprints on the sand of time.
Footprints which perhaps another,
Sailing o’er Life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, will take heart again.
So let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.’
Principles endure.
Listening to Donal Lenihan, Brent Pope, Cora Staunton and Pat McCabe on Sunday morning was like getting plugged in to a current of inspiration.
The enthusiasm of the rugby men, the sense of Staunton, the fluent eloquence of McCabe, all attested to an appetite for work; sheer, hard, persistent honest-to God graft.
It’s the constant message, do the work, get results. Apply yourself with a bit of will. You’ll pick up know-how. You’ll learn turns and ways to deal with obstacles and setbacks. You’ll learn more in a week of doing it, than in a year of thinking about it.
And that’s where the bit of discipline comes in; because then the application is reinforced with the priceless know-how.
The accumulation of small changes, minor modifications, refined ideas, all gather into a formidable force. You operate on a different level.
Whether the athletes spoke of the gruelling training, or McCabe of the sometimes slog of writing, all were emphatic on persistence.
This isn’t new. We’ve heard it before.
We’ve been told to practice, rehearse, drill, internalize, and above all, to do it, take action, make a start.
All four of Miriam O’Callaghan’s guests are doers. It was a worthwhile hour of listening.
To go back a hundred and eighty years, much the same was then said by the American poet H.W.Longfellow.
‘The lives of great men all remind us
We can live a life sublime
And departing, leave behind us,
Footprints on the sand of time.
Footprints which perhaps another,
Sailing o’er Life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, will take heart again.
So let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate,
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.’
Principles endure.
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