Reminders – Learned Living

To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. (Steven Pressfield)

We are incomplete beings. We are a form of potential. We are unlike other animals in this sense. A lion cub grows up to be a predator. It doesn’t require will power to become what nature intended it to be. Nature didn’t intend for humans to be anything. It left that choice to the individual. Each individual has the possibility to transcend what or who they are at this given moment and realize their potential. What stands in the way is Resistance or themselves. The voice that pokes at your insecurities, tells you you’ve worked enough, it’s good enough, that pain is bad, that struggle must be avoided, that you can blame someone else for the way you are (parents, lover, children, society, gender, race, culture), the voice that gives you an out which you actively and consciously embrace. The voice that speaks when there is a decision to be made.

To be more. To do more. To become more. Or to stay what you are.

Take the easy way or the hard way?

Easy way brings pleasure right now and makes you feel good but the chains of comfort keep you from soaring, growing, moving, changing, becoming and it robs you of time. To not work and procrastinate. To skip the last set. To have that conversation later. This choice can take your possibility away, can take your potential away.

The hard way is to do the more difficult thing right this moment and do that every moment of your life. Wake up early, workout, be disciplined, routined, have those difficult conversations, sacrifice the immediate gratification, sacrifice the warmth and comfort, embrace whatever it is that stirs the thoughts of procrastination in your mind. That’s the way. That’s the path. The discomfort.

You know what the right thing to do is because you have done plenty of self-experiments throughout your life. Plenty of times when you chose the easy way which only left you with guilt and without fulfillment. Over and over the same acts are repeated and little to no growth is to be had. The change is simple as well. You’ve known the way the whole time. You’ve avoided it each time you chose the easy way and were left with regrets later on.

The path is hard. This is the way that growth happens. You become the possibility nature laid out for you. The enemy is resistance. The reality is the shortage of time. The goal is to self actualize. The path is hard.

One of my favorite books is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Aurelius is considered one of the three pillars of Stoic philosophy and his book, Meditations, is a war journal in which he wrote down his thoughts and ideas. I’m sure I will make posts directly from this wonderful book and get deep into Aurelius’ ideas at some point but the reason for this post is due to one of the messages I took from the overall concept of the text.

I need constant reminders. In Meditations, you see Aurelius essentially repeating a handful of topics over and over again. The reason for this is that the war journal was never meant for publication so, the texts were messages to himself, constantly reminding himself to be fair, to be a good person, to keep his emotions under control, to look at things from other peoples perspective, to understand that time is finite and soon he will be dead and this theme goes on. The theme of reminding himself how he should behave and what he should do.

I used to think there was a problem with my thought process when I didn’t understand something right away. I believed I was insufficient in some way and I probably am but through Meditation I saw that there was at least one other like myself, who too required reminders, who also forgets every now and then what matters and what to do and who uses his writing to keep his mind focused on the good.

I am sure I will repeat certain topics on here. That I will come close to writing the same blog more than once. But it is more so because my mind needs repetition and constant flow of similar thought to grow, change and adapt. I need to remember, be told more than once or twice, to read over and over and so, my writing also mimics this procedure. My writing also acts as a way to understand the same topic over a span of time. I also feel that most people work this way. That if you constantly jump from one thing to another, one topic to the next, you don’t fully grasp and understand that topic or idea.

In order to change you need time. With time you adapt. Also, one needs time to remember.

Tag: Reminders

Reflections On Why You Should Take The Hard Path

Reflections: On Reminders