I get up at sunrise. I'm a Buddhist, so I chant in the morning. My wife and I sit and have coffee together, but then it's list-making time. I have carpentry projects. We have roads we keep in repair. It's not back-breaking, but it's certainly aerobic and mildly strenuous.
Year by year we are learning that in this restless, strenuous American life of ours vacations are essential.
Times of transition are strenuous, but I love them. They are an opportunity to purge, rethink priorities, and be intentional about new habits. We can make our new normal any way we want.
If we cannot by reason, by influence, by example, by strenuous effort, and by personal sacrifice, mend the bad places of civilization, we certainly cannot do it by force.
The most common objection that I hear to walking as exercise is that it's too easy, that only sweaty, strenuous activity offers real benefits. But there is abundant evidence that regular, brisk walking is associated with better health, including lower blood pressure, better moods and improved cholesterol ratios.
All through the years since World War II, the Japanese people have, I am convinced, made strenuous efforts to preserve and promote world peace, contributing to the progress and prosperity of mankind.
I've done a lot of work in the gym preparing myself for what is certain to be pretty strenuous pre-season training - something I've not previously experienced. And I knocked local football on the head this winter, simply to ensure I didn't pick up any injuries.
Novelists go about the strenuous business of marrying and burying their people, or else they send them to sea, or to Africa, or at the least, out of town. Essayists in their stillness ponder love and death.
The one excellent thing that can be learned from a lion is that whatever a man intends doing should be done by him with a whole-hearted and strenuous effort.
I realized very early in life what my abilities and limitations were, and foreign languages was definitely one of my limitations. With strenuous effort, I just barely passed my French class at Harvard so I could graduate.