I try. I start the day with such high hopes. I'm going to get amazing things done! I'll make fabulous progress! I can achieve the impossible!

And then inch by inch, bit by bit, the world wears me down. Everybody wants to fight. All that energy dissipates until I'm curled up into a ball even before dinner starts.

Sure, maybe I'm not fighting Donald Trump for acres of New York. Maybe I'm not battling Mitt Romney for the presidency. Maybe I'm not bantering with Kelly Ripa on morning TV. But there's honor in victories even on small battlefields, and I can find comfort in that.