“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”

— Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013)
British Prime Minister, nicknamed the “Iron Lady” for her fierce persistence.

Swearing is not my thing. But right now—for once, maybe even on a stack of Bibles (to my Mother’s eternal horror)—I’m going to do it anyway. I swear that my daily demons line themselves up every night when I go to bed, watching as I lie there all peaceful like, orchestrating my next-day goals.

I see them out of the corner of my eye, leaning in, peering, looking carefully as I tap, tap my list on my phone.

And you know what? I swear, they’re waiting for me the next morning.

More often than not, they show up as soon as I start my biking, maybe because that’s how I start my day, right after coffee. I know that if I don’t bike then, I won’t bike at all. The first demon arrives before I even lace my shoes. It whispers:

“Why so early? You’ve got other things you need to do first. You can bike later.”

Nice try. But I’m on to that trick. I know that when it comes to biking, later never comes.

Another one comes at me from a different angle.

“Today? You’ve been doing this every day. You need a break. Take the day off.”

“Get behind me, Satan! I’m biking as usual.”

But get this. By mile three, another demon shows up:

“You’ll never finish.”

I keep pedaling, but the demons keep coming. By mile seven, I’m hearing:

“Yeah. Your butt sure is sore. If you keep going, it’s going to be sore as hell tomorrow.”

I keep on going. And so it goes, on and on through all the miles—10, 15, 20—riding against a whole Satanic chorus, chasing me faster and faster and faster.

Fiercely determined. Fiercely persistent. Fiercely anchored. That’s how I win the biking battle. Usually.

The next demon that hounds me is procrastination. Don’t get me wrong—I know better. I know the wisdom about “breaking things down,” about taking the first step, about Ben Franklin’s truth that “little strokes fell great oaks.” But when I’m staring at the big picture, the demon of procrastination is quick to pounce.

It starts yammering:

“It’s too much. You don’t even know where to start. Better put it off until tomorrow. You’ll see it clearer then, rested and fresh.”

And the sly part is—it sounds almost reasonable. That’s how this demon works. It pretends it’s looking out for me. But I know the truth: once I give in, tomorrow becomes the next day, and the next day, and soon the oak is still standing, unscarred.

So I fight. I start small. One tap of the keys, one page, one email sent. A single stroke against the oak.

Fiercely determined. Fiercely persistent. Fiercely anchored. That’s how I win the procrastination battle. Usually.

I have other demons, of course. But they’re far too personal to divulge for all the world to know. I’m not about to share them.

Like the demon that tells me that my writing will never be good enough to be discovered by a magazine or a newspaper syndicate.

Or the demon that mocks long-range planning at my age, reminding me that there’s far more behind me than there will ever be ahead.

And I’m certainly not going to tell you about the demon that wonders what waits on the other side of the great divide—the same divide every one of us will cross, where all have gone before to face the mysteries of beyond forever.

Like I said, they’re way too personal. So I’ll keep them to myself.

But I’ve gotten to the point in my life that my demons don’t embarrass me anymore because I know that to be human is to battle the demons that strive to undo us.

And besides, we all have our demons. You do, too. Some of them may be the same as mine.

Or maybe you have the demon of worry, who shows up right on schedule, carrying a suitcase that never unpacks. The demon of regret, who loves to remind us of choices we can’t un-choose, words we can’t un-say. The demon of loneliness, who doesn’t bother knocking—just slips in and makes himself at home.

Or the demon of disappointment who lingers when the prize you’ve chased turns out to be a shadow.

Or what about weariness, when the weight of the day presses like red Virginia clay, and every step feels heavier than the last.

And then there’s doubt—the slyest demon of them all—always ready with the same question:

“Are you sure you’re enough?”

These aren’t strangers to you or to me or to any of us. They’re regulars. They know the way in. They don’t need an invitation.

I’m fairly certain that I heard someone somewhere right now screaming in disbelief:

“Get real. Those don’t count as demons at all compared to the ones that I’m battling.”

I hear you. I understand. I’ve been blessed because I’ve never had to deal with the demons of addiction—alcohol, drugs, gambling. Or the demons of abuse—physical, emotional, sexual—the kind that scar the body and the soul.

I’ve never faced the demon of homelessness, not knowing where I’d sleep. Or the demon of hunger, not knowing where my next meal would come from.

I’ve been spared the demon of crushing poverty, the one that never lets you breathe free. And I’ve never lived under the demon of war, with its bombs and sirens and losses that can’t be counted.

But it seems to me—and yes, I know my limited experience might make this sound overly simplistic—whatever demon we face, we have to be fiercely determined. We have to be fiercely persistent. We have to be fiercely anchored. That’s how we win our daily battles with whatever demons come after us.

But let me emphasize here one key word that I emphasized earlier. Usually.

Being fiercely determined, being fiercely persistent, and being fiercely anchored enables us to win our battles daily. Usually.

But as we all know, some days we lose the battle. We all do. And when we lose, it stings. The demons strut, they jeer, they claim the day as theirs. They would have us believe that losing once means losing for good.

But they’re wrong.

Because a lost battle is not a lost war. It’s a stumble, not a surrender. And tomorrow—always tomorrow—the fight begins again.

The demons will be there, lined up and waiting, whispering their same old lies. And we’ll be there, too. Fiercely determined. Fiercely persistent. Fiercely anchored. Ready to face them.

We may not win every day. Sometimes, we do. Sometimes, we don’t. But we show up anyway. Because being human has never been about living without demons. It’s about never letting them have the last word.

And in case you’re wondering, let me assure you. They’ll be back. But guess what? We’ll be back—bruised, stubborn, laughing, and still ready to wrestle.