When life gets unfair, let this one poem be your warm blanket
In the winter of 1942, A Wisconsin kid named David Schreiner sat at his family’s kitchen table and journaled his “Rules for Life.”
Never talk about anyone.
Ambition. Always have drive.
Regular habits of exercise.
No smoking or drinking.
Be more cheerful.
Be more relaxed.
David was a tight end at the University of Wisconsin and became a Marine captain in the Pacific. You can imagine why he kept strict rules.
Call it a personality trait of all stoic Midwesterners, but I sat down at my kitchen table in the winter of 2022 and wrote an eerily similar list—albeit peppered with secular language.
Never talk shit about anyone.
Your work is important. Give 100%.
Go the fuck to sleep.
Workout 6 days per week.
Be happier and present.
We also shared the same attitude towards dating.
David: No promiscuity of any kind with any girl.
Cal: No one-night stands.
Anyway.
David’s self-improvement journey paid dividends. That year, he was named first-team All-American and finished tenth in the Heisman Trophy ranking. He helped Wisconsin finish 3rd in the country after beating Notre Dame and Ohio State.
I also had my fair share of wins in 2022, including a successful newsletter, running a marathon under 3:30, and beating my company’s sales goal by 140%.
Sadly, that’s where our similarities end.
David left for military training after graduation, unaware of how messy and intimate the Pacific Theater would become.
David fought in the Battle of Okinawa, one of the deadliest battles in WWII. Some 3,000 people died daily on the island, and the battle lasted 84 days. It is said that Truman dropped the atomic bomb only after witnessing its carnage—obviously thinking, never again.
David was among the fallen. Three years after he wrote his rules for life, a Japanese officer shot him while pretending to surrender. He was 24 years old.
The one thing to remember when things get unfair
It’s hard to know what to make of David’s story. On the one hand, it shows what discipline and courage can achieve. On the other, it forces us to accept how unfair life can be.
Maybe we aren’t in control.
Every day we wake up in a world indifferent to us. Over the last few weeks, I watched friends get laid off. I watched banks fail for no better reason than greed. I watched what seemed like great relationships on the surface end in heartbreak.
How could we be, as David wrote, “cheerful” when it’s so easy to give up?
My answer is naïve, but I believe it’s the only answer—Hope.
Hope against hope. Then keep hoping.
I have a poem from Emily Dickinson written in my journal. Oddly enough, I copied it when I was feeling low and heartbroken last year. Her words echo through the ages and have been a warm blanket for me when things seem darkest.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
I'm not a poetry expert, but she's saying that hope is a good thing. It follows you even in the storm and asks nothing of you. It asks "a crumb" of you.
Leaders are dealers in hope, Ryan Holiday once wrote. It's carrying on your word with the company despite the layoffs. It's keeping your heart open even after it's been shattered. It's finding a way to recover from your injury and finish the marathon.
The hardship hamster wheel never really stops, but hope is a gentle reminder that the sun also rises, even at the end.
As my friend Subbarao likes to say, after a stroke of bad luck, "we go on."