The secret to winning is learning how to lose. That is, learning to bounce back from failure and disappointment—undeterred—and continuing to steadily march toward your potential. Your response to failure determines your capacity for success.
Writer and scholar C.S. Lewis reminds us that what looks best is when we stop worrying about looking good and start focusing on doing our best:
"The sword glitters not because the swordsman set out to make it glitter but because he is fighting for his life and therefore moving it very quickly."
"The secret to success is retaining your child-like qualities."
Discipline is destiny:
In the ancient world, virtue was comprised of four key components: Courage, Temperance, Justice, and Wisdom. Books by Ryan Holiday.
The book provides a deep understanding that self-discipline is not something that just happens to us; it is something we cultivate. And being disciplined is something we prove by the life we lead. Ryan explains how self-discipline must be observed physically, embodied mentally, and rendered magisterially when our moment comes. When we say that self-discipline saves us, part of what it saves us from is ourselves. It is through discipline that not only are all things possible, but also that all things are enhanced.
Here are two important lessons from the book:
1) Attack the Dawn:
In Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, we hear the most powerful man in the world trying to convince himself to get out of bed at dawn when the lower part of himself wants desperately to stay. "Is this what I was created for?" he asks of his reluctance. "To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?"
Yes, it is nicer under there. But is that what we were born for? To feel nice? That's how you're going to spend the gift of life, the gift of this present moment that you will never have again? "Don't you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can?" he said to himself but also to us. "And you're not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren't you running to do what your nature demands?"
Yet here we are, thousands of years later, still hitting the snooze button on our alarms. Here we are, wasting the most productive hours of the day, choosing to reject these moments before the interruptions, before the distractions, before the rest of the gets up and going too. Passing on the opportunity to gather our flowering potential while it's freshest, still shining with morning dew. Be up and doing. While you're fresh. While you can. Grab that hour before daylight. Grab that hour before traffic. Grab it while no one is looking, while everyone else is still sleep.
When you have trouble waking up, when you find it hard, remind yourself of who you come from, remind yourself of the tradition, remind yourself of what is at stake. Think of how lucky you are. Be glad to be awake (because it's better than the alternative, which we'll all greet one day). Feel the joy of being able to do what you love. Cherish the time. But most of all, use it.
2) Tolerant with Others, Strict with Yourself:
The only person you get to truly hard on is you. It will take every ounce of your self-control to enforce that – not because it's hard to be hard on yourself, but because it's so hard to let people get away with things you'd never allow in yourself. To let them do things you know are bad for them, to let them slack off when you see so much more in them.
But you have to. Because their life is not in your control. Because you'll burn yourself out if you can't get to a place where you live and let live. Credit them for trying. Credit them for context. Forgive. Forget. Help them get better, if they're open to the help. Not everyone has trained like you have. Not everyone has the knowledge you have. Not everyone has the willpower or the commitment you have. Not everyone signed up for this kind of life either! Which is why you need to be tolerant, even generous with people. Anything else is unfair. It's also counterproductive.
We're on our own journey and, yes, it is a strict and difficult one. But we understand that others are on their own path, doing the best they can, making the most of what they have been given. It's not our place to judge. It is our place to cheer them on and accept them.
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"'Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, then that creation is given a soul.' "
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