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Day Ten: Sweaty Inspiration

Not to belabor a point, but Texas is big. And for the most part it’s relatively flat. Especially in contrast to the Grand Tetons and the Rocky Mountains where we just spent the past week. If the Beatles were to write about our drive here it would be “The Long and Bendless Road.”

We made it to San Antonio in the evening and we realized we are total Northwest wusses. 105 degrees and humid. I’ve been to gym saunas that aren’t this hot. But it’s a beautiful city so we walked down to the Alamo from our hotel, grabbed a snow cone, and our spirits were lifted.

And yes. The Alamo is way small. Shockingly so. But way cool, too.

Clearly the most famous battle of the Texas Revolution, it is unique in our national folklore because technically it resulted in defeat. As Americans, we tend to celebrate victories (Battle of Midway; Siege of Yorktown; Iwo Jima; D-Day). Yet it’s still a quintessential American drama.

Outnumbered by Santa Anna’s forces, the small band of soldiers held ground long enough to make the attack extremely costly for the Mexican forces, killing hundreds. And because of the brave sacrifice of the Alamo men (all of whom died), when the Texan army attacked Santa Anna’s forces a month later in the Battle of San Jacinto, the troops were inspired to victory shouting “Remember the Alamo!” It was that battle that finally defeated the Mexican President who was captured and forced to order his troops out of Texas.

The Alamo church building is today a designated official Texas state shrine. Not because it marks a place of victory…but because it marks a place of inspiration.

I love that.

Much of this adventure we are now on is about harnessing inspiration. Identifying pockets of hope in a down economy. And looking for ways to learn from past defeats. Winston Churchill famously said, “Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.”

There are a lot of enthusiastic people in this country. People who are not afraid to fail and who take failure and turn it into an engine for success. It’s that uniquely American pioneer spirit (perhaps mixed with youthful naiveté as we are unencumbered by doing things the “wrong” (read: “new”) way) that fuels our confidence. We don’t wallow, in America. We don’t sit around licking our wounds for long.

The secret to our unique success in the world is exactly what the Alamo represents. When we are inspired by something larger than ourselves, we win. It’s just a matter of finding that inspiration and remembering it, just as the Texas army remembered the Alamo.