…the ultimate opponent is the warriors own self…To actually overcome one’s own defects is the nature of victory. – Deng Ming Dao, 365 Tao
The biggest obstacle to success is oftentimes ourselves. This is because there is a lot to overcome. We must overcome our fears of getting started. We must put in the effort necessary to master the skills required for our chosen endeavor. We must overcome our fears of success, of thinking that success is for others and not us. We must, of course, overcome our fear of failure and, really, the only way to overcome this is to go out and fail a few times.
It takes courage. It takes courage to get started it takes courage to improve yourself and it courage to fail. It takes courage to do with our lives what we were meant to do with them.
The only way to overcome these fears is to actually go out and dive in and do something. There is no substitute. It doesn’t have to be anything Earth shattering either, it merely has to be something important to us. We must have the courage to do with our lives what we were meant to do with them
After we’ve done this enough we start to realize that true success come from inside, working hard at something worth doing regardless of what the outcome is, because this world is rather random and a lot of what some perceive to be success is out of our hands.
All of us have different defects to overcome. Some may lack patience. Some may have trouble pulling the trigger on chasing a dream. Mine is procrastination. Given the choice between doing something now and putting it off I will put it off. As long as possible, too. I have no qualms about chasing a dream or two, in fact, after doing it my entire adult life it’s rather easy, but few put off things to the last minute like I do.
…the ultimate opponent is the warriors own self…
We are often the biggest obstacle in our path. Once we realize this, we can attack our weaknesses and not run from them. When we do that, we are halfway home to living the life we were meant to live.
