The Daily Stoic

In the winter of 1824, things were not looking good for Simon Bolivar. He was at one of the lowest points of his decade-plus long revolution of South America. Many of the countries he had freed from Spanish rule were in chaos or at risk of being re-conquered. His own health had begun to fail from so many hours in the saddle on campaign. He was haggard and gaunt--skeletal, really. Would he give up? Would he die? Would all this turn out to be for naught? With this in mind, a man asked Bolivar, as it appeared that he neared rock bottom, “What will you do now?”The great liberator didn’t pause, he didn’t hesitate. All his charisma returned in an instant and he answered simply and definitively, “Triumph!”It’s one of those scenes from history that sends chills down our spine. It’s Napoleon shouting, “There will be no Alps!” It’s the Spartans retorting to the Persians who claimed the arrows of their overwhelmingly superior forces would blot out the sun, “Then we shall fight in the shade.” It’s Churchill, “We shall go