Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Warrior

With thanks to Geoff Thompson


This resonated with me.To read the full article click here


Where have all the warriors gone? Where are all the stoics, the hardy grafters, the industrious inventors, the pioneers and adventurers? Why are men’s shirts tight on the belly instead of on the chest and back, and why are woman having to get post codes placed on each cheek of their very large arses? What ever happened to physical prowess, the hardy mentality and the imaginative acuity that enabled our great species to survive eons against seemingly impossible odds?


People have forgotten how to be courageous.

They have forgotten why it is important to be courageous.

Maybe now is the time to reconnect with the warrior that you once were and could be again.

Here are a few tips to help you towards self sovereignty and hardiness:

1) Get your physical well being back to balance. And start now. You should not be fat! You should not be unfit. You should not be out of shape.

2) Do not put of until tomorrow when you and I both know that for the procrastinator tomorrow does not exist.

3) Don’t point the finger of blame, unless you have a mirror handy. It is not a warrior trait to blame. The responsibility starts and ends with you.
This is the exciting bit. You don’t have to wait for permissions, you don’t need
the nod from your wife or your mum or your mates down the pub, it is down to
you, and making your own decisions is one step towards becoming a warrior.

4) Be industrious. Be busy investing your hours into the conglomerate that is You Inc. You should not be lazy, your time is very valuable because your time is finite, it is a once only deal, you will never get lost time back again, so make the very best you can of it.

5) Kill the self pity; you should not be self-pitying, it does not serve you and it is not a warrior trait. You need to be stoic about life, if you get knocked down seven times, get back up again eight.

6) Groom! People say that you should not judge by appearance. But if someone does not even have the self discipline to honour their body by keeping it clean and groomed, then it does not say an awful lot for their inner being.

7) Make an inventory. Abraham Lincoln made an inventory of all his faults; impatience, procrastination, lateness etc. He ended up with about fifteen personal failings on his list. He then spent a week, in rota, perfecting each area until he had erased them all.

8) Self invest. Set an amount of time out every day to invest in yourself. Read, write, study, train, meditate – what ever does it for you, but invest. Make the investment consistent. And don’t say you do not have the time. You have the same time as everyone else. And if you don’t invest in you, who will?

9) Build a library. I have yet to meet a very successful person who does not read heavily. Readers are leaders. So start your collection of books and audios now. It will be life changing, because it is through the library that we escape mediocrity.

10) Serve. Make a point of serving others, because what you give out will keep returning. There is much power here! This is a reciprocal universe, what you give you will get back ten fold. Where possible make your service anonymous. Ideally only you and God should know where and how you serve. The real power of service is when it is secret service.

Be a warrior. Do not let life kick sand in your face. Stand up to it. Stoics see adventure and growth in every life situation, even and especially the tough life situations. It is in adversity that warriors are made. Be a hardy grafter, an industrious inventor and a pioneer. Do not settle for second best or complain about the fact that you would do more ‘if things were not so difficult.’ Life is hard for everyone, no one can escape the human condition, but it does not have to be dull and mundane; it can be exciting-hard and colourful-hard. You just need to give yourself a change of perspective, stop seeing what you have not got, and start looking at what you have got.

Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian and Shaman, when teaching his student Carlos Castaneda, told him that the universe is made up of consciousness, and that if he changed his perception of the universe whole new worlds would open up to him. So get busy, change your perception, see the growth is difficulty, the adventure in the warrior life and whole new worlds will open up to you.

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