{"id":10896,"date":"2013-11-11T17:48:53","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T17:48:53","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2013-11-11T17:48:53","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T17:48:53","slug":"you_only_get_one_life_live_it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/11\/11\/you_only_get_one_life_live_it\/","title":{"rendered":"You Only Get One Life — Live It!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: I\u2019m reading a book<\/a>. You know, I\u2019m a huge fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I lived in Pittsburgh from 1970 to 1975. That was when the Steelers dynasty was beginning, and it was special. I was just 20 years old when I moved to Pittsburgh, when I left home. And, you know, I\u2019ve always been a sportsman. St. Louis Cardinals, the Los Angeles Dodgers were my baseball teams, but I was never really a gung-ho football fan. I loved watching it on TV, but in terms of having a team, I really didn\u2019t, until Pittsburgh. <\/p>\n

I think about those years often, the seventies and the kind of decade they were economically. I mean, it was tough times in a lot of ways. Richard Nixon imposing wage and price controls because inflation was out of control at 3%. We had these concocted energy crises with long lines at gasoline stations. The price of gasoline was skyrocketing. In many ways it was gray days, like an overcast, cloudy, threatening to rain or snow, 40-degree kind of day. That\u2019s my memory of some of the seventies. Not all. But certainly the first half of the decade. <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In the midst of all that was the Steelers dynasty forming — and if you lived in Pittsburgh then, it totally captured everybody. Since then, I have actually studied how entire cities can derive their self-esteem — and I mean that: Entire cities can derive their self-esteem — from the performance of a local sports team. Baseball team, football, even hockey, in a town like Pittsburgh or Buffalo can really affect it. It was fascinating to be part of it, but that was a long time ago. There\u2019s a guy who\u2019s written a book, Gary Pomerantz.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been at the Washington Post, any number of places, and he has written a book that I\u2019m reading called Their Life\u2019s Work<\/a>,” and it\u2019s about the seventies Steelers, which, by the way, for those of you that are not dyed-in-the-wool fans, the seventies Steelers are acknowledged as the best football team ever. The 49ers people disagree. The Cowboys people disagree. But in terms of dynasties, you couldn\u2019t have a team that stays together as long as that team did now with free agency and salary caps and that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

But it was special, and to be in Pittsburgh for those five years when it was all forming and beginning, even now I feel a connection to it. Reading this book, I\u2019m learning things that were going on in the town I lived in that I had no idea about. It\u2019s all behind-the-scenes stuff, but it\u2019s about what it is like to be on a championship team of anything. I think… You know, most people do not ever know what that\u2019s like.<\/p>\n

Not just football, not just baseball, not just sports, but a winning team doing anything. It\u2019s probably the same kind of feeling people have at Apple right now. They\u2019re winning big. Google may have the same kind of team thing — although they\u2019re so big, maybe not. But it\u2019s something most people will never experience. But everybody loved \u2019em, and everybody that loves football wonders what it would be like.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why there\u2019s so much interest in Incognito and Jonathan Martin stuff with the Dolphins, because nobody knows what goes on in the locker room. Everybody wonders what it would be like, and this guy Pomerantz has just done a terrific job writing about the city, the Rooneys, everybody that mattered on that team. The players and what they\u2019ve done, what they\u2019ve become and so forth. It\u2019s just fascinating.<\/line><\/p>\n

I ran across a quote near the end of the book. I finished it late Saturday night. This is how it\u2019s written in the book: “‘I think of the author and rugged individualist Jack London. Just weeks before his death in 1916, Jack London was interviewed by a San Francisco journalist who quoted him as saying, ‘I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than that it should be stifled by dry-rot.<\/p>\n

“‘I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to LIVE. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.'” Now, this has no bearing on the Steelers; it has no bearing on the book. It has everything to do with what life is becoming in America to me, especially the last line: “The proper function of man is to LIVE,” not to exist. “I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” <\/p>\n

That rings true to me. I tell you, folks, we only get one life. That\u2019s a favorite phrase of mine, and this is what I mean by it. There\u2019s only one. There isn\u2019t a do-over. You can maybe do over a day, but you can\u2019t do your life over. And what are we occupied with in America right now? Exactly that. Trying to prolong our lives by not living them. “Don\u2019t take any risks, don\u2019t eat that, don\u2019t drive that, don\u2019t do this!<\/p>\n

“Sit around, and don\u2019t do anything. Don\u2019t take any risks! Don\u2019t put yourself in any danger, don\u2019t make yourself miserable, don\u2019t make yourself uncomfortable, don\u2019t make yourself mad, don\u2019t hurt anybody\u2019s feelings, don\u2019t get your feelings hurt. Just sit around.” Everything is oriented toward never dying and everything is oriented toward not living. I\u2019m talking about liberalism.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about the idea that it\u2019s the people who are living life that often are criticized the most. They\u2019re the ones doing things. While we have a culture that\u2019s been conditioned to do nothing, to sit around and wait for something to happen and hope it\u2019s good. “But don\u2019t do anything that might hurt, don\u2019t do anything that might harm, and don\u2019t do anything that might exhilarate, \u2019cause that isn\u2019t gonna happen. You\u2019re only gonna get hurt.” <\/p>\n

And I tell you, the whole thing rings true to me. <\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: Jack London, I also like the fact that he\u2019s referred to here as a “rugged individualist,” and the quote is from 1916. <\/line><\/p>\n

“The proper function of man is to LIVE,” not exist. “I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” He said this just weeks before he died in 1916, and it just rings home to me. Folks, this is why practically every liberal argument scares me, frightens me, that people fall for it. Because liberalism coerces people, convinces people just to sit on their butts and do nothing — and then tells them that\u2019s the safest route to take.<\/p>\n

Then it tells \u2019em what to eat and what not to eat, what to drive, what not to drive, what to drink, what not to drink, and how much of it you shouldn\u2019t drink, and how much you\u2019re allowed to drink. It\u2019s absurd. They got certain foods banned. It\u2019s none of their business. They use government for these purposes, which are nothing but mechanisms of control because the liberal doesn\u2019t care about your life or how long it is. The liberal cares about controlling your life as long as you live. <\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter how soon you die or how long you live. They don\u2019t care about any of that. They\u2019re sick people who think that everybody should live the way they do, and if you don\u2019t, you\u2019re an enemy, and they\u2019re gonna make sure that by fiat — government regulation or the power of the state — that you\u2019re not gonna do what they don\u2019t want you to do. They\u2019ve got so many people sitting around watching TMZ and living their lives vicariously through all of these really mind-numbed celebrities. <\/p>\n

People are sitting around getting their jollies through others who are living their lives, and everybody says, “Gee, I wonder what that\u2019d be like. Gee, I wonder what that\u2019s like. Gee, I wonder what that feels like,” instead of going out and trying it, instead of going out and doing it. You know, the cure for almost any malady — other than bedridden illness, but the cure for any psychological problem — is action, action that makes you stop thinking about yourself. That\u2019s all the left wants you to do: Think about your misery and having somebody else fix it for you, and then don\u2019t take any more risks because we can\u2019t stand the pain of failure.<\/p>\n

We can\u2019t stand the pain of others\u2019 success.<\/p>\n

Nobody gets to do anything. <\/line><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a crock.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH: “Rush, you do know that Jack London was a card-carrying Socialist.” Yeah, I do. But he didn\u2019t live that way, obviously. He\u2019s typical. He was a card-carrying socialist. He died, by the way, when he was 40. He died in 1916. Some people say it was suicide. Nobody knows for sure. But I don\u2019t care. He was a card-carrying socialist, but he didn\u2019t live that way. It was impossible. Maybe he wanted everybody else to, but in terms of the way he lived, it\u2019s typical of what liberals do. They always exempt themselves from the rules that they impose on others. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: I\u2019m reading a book. You know, I\u2019m a huge fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I lived in Pittsburgh from 1970 to 1975. That was when the Steelers dynasty was beginning, and it was special. I was just 20 years old when I moved to Pittsburgh, when I left home. And, you know, I\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nYou Only Get One Life - Live It! - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2013\/11\/11\/you_only_get_one_life_live_it\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"You Only Get One Life - Live It! - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: I\u2019m reading a book. You know, I\u2019m a huge fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and I lived in Pittsburgh from 1970 to 1975. 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