There is a profoundly emotional scene at the end of Creed II, another installment in the Rocky Balboa boxing movie series.
Viktor and his father run side by side through the alleys in the early grey of a Kyiv morning. Viktor Drago had been defeated by Adonis Creed in their boxing rematch in Russia, like how Rocky defeated Viktor’s father, Ivan Drago, many years prior. Following the ignominious defeat, the boxing arena, Russia, and even his mother turn on Viktor and ostracizes him and his father back to the slums of Ukraine, mirroring the fate Viktor’s father once suffered after his loss to Rocky. Viktor has the strong stride and erect posture of a young man in his prime next to his father with a slight shoulder roll and limp of an aging athlete. No one else is around. Everyone again abandoned them – friends, mother, wife, and country. Their life’s work had been shattered. Dreams of a better life evaporated, making you wonder who the true antagonist of the movie was. As the camera pans away, Viktor turns his head slightly for the briefest moments and looks at his dad – the one person who has never abandoned him and is always there to help keep moving forward.
Anyone who has suffered a defeat or missed a goal can relate to this emotional scene. Picking yourself back up after a failure is hard, and doing it alone is even more difficult. But that is what you must do. If you had a bad race, workout, or day at work, tomorrow is a new day. You must pick yourself up, be thankful for everyone still by your side, lace your proverbial or physical running shoes, and start again.
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt captured the sentiment in his famous “In the Arena” speech when he said:
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."