To Be Victorious in Life

When I read that passage, I thought of the introduction to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

The editor, Jonathan Barnes, makes the important point that:“To call a man eudaimōn is to say something about how he lives and what he does. The notion of eudaimonia is closely tied, in a way in which the notion of happiness is not, to success: the eudaimōn is someone who makes a success of his life and actions, who realizes his aims and ambitions as a man, who fulfills himself.”

Then Barnes tells us:“It will not do to replace ‘happiness’ by ‘success’ or ‘fulfillment’ as a translation of eudaimonia; the matter is too complicated for any such simple remedy, and in what follows I shall continue to employ the word ‘happiness’, guarding it with a pair of inverted commas. But it is worth considering Aristotle’s recipe for eudaimonia with the notion of success in mind. The Ethics, we are thus supposing, is not telling us how to be morally good men, or even how to be humanly happy: it is telling us how to live successful human lives, how to fulfill ourselves as men.”

In that same Note, we get to hear what Aristotle himself has to say about virtue and the fact that THINKING you are virtuous does not *actually* make you virtuous.

We need to, as always, move from Theory to PRACTICE.

Here’s how he puts it:“Just as at the Olympic Games it is not the best-looking or the strongest men present that are crowned with wreaths, but the competitors (because it is from them that the winners come), so it is those who act rightly win the honours and rewards in life.”

And, it’s been way too long since I quoted Donald Robertson and his perspective on librarians of the mind vs. warriors of the mind, so let’s dig this gem up from The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy where he tells us:“The ancients conceived of the ideal philosopher as a veritable warrior of the mind, a spiritual hero akin to Hercules himself, but since the demise of the Hellenistic schools, the philosopher has become something more bookish, not a warrior, but a mere librarian of the mind.”

Here’s to being on fire with purpose—moving forward with undaunted determination toward our ultimate goal and ultimate victory.

Resistance. It’s part of the process.

This morning I worked on a Note on Steven Pressfield’s latest book:Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be. The basic idea? If we want to fulfill our destinies, we MUST show up—putting our literal and metaphorical “ass” where it needs to be—on the line. We do our Jobs. All day. Every day. What gets in the way? Resistance. With, as Pressfield puts it, a capital R. Just like the seed that pushes up against from the earth, WE meet Resistance.

As Pressfield says:“What is Resistance? It’s our own tendency—yours and mine and everyone’s—to yield to procrastination, self-doubt, fear, impatience, self-inflation, self-denigration, distraction, laziness, arrogance, complacency, and perfectionism. It’s our inability to focus, our incapacity to press on through adversity. It’s our terror of finishing and exposing our work to the judgment of the marketplace. It’s fear of failure. It’s fear of success. Fear of humiliation. Fear of destitution. It’s our inability to defer gratification, to acquire and act with self-discipline, self-validation, and self-reinforcement.”

Resistance will ALWAYS show up—within our own minds and in the world outside us. PERFECT.

What do we do? We show up. We struggle. We battle. We go on trying.

All day. Every day. ESPECIALLY, as always, Today.

I just got off a coaching call with Phil Stutz. In nearly every session, he references Rudolf Steiner who said that the two primary limiting factors in a person’s life are simple: Fear and Laziness.

There’s no better summation of those two issues than the two phrases: “I can’t” and “I won’t.”

As long as we allow fear and doubt to cloud our thinking, it’s impossible for us to achieve. We MUST believe we can if we have a shot at actually doing so.

But... That’s not enough.

We need to move past both the fear/doubt AND the laziness and actually DO the hard work—moving over and under and through all the inevitable obstacles without losing the “I can!” hope and determination.

Yogananda continues by saying: “Throw out all negative thoughts. Overcome the idea that you cannot do a thing by simply starting to do it. Circumstances will try to slap you down, to make you become discouraged and again say, ‘I can’t do it.’ If there is a devil, that devil is ‘I can’t do it.’ That is the satan that has disconnected your dynamo of eternal power; it is the main reason you do not succeed in life. Throw that demon out of your consciousness by your indomitable conviction: ‘I can do it.’ Mean it, and affirm it as often as you can. Mentally believe it, and energize that belief by acting on it with will power. Work! And while you work, never give up the thought, ‘I can do it.’ Even if there are a thousand obstacles, do not relent. If you have that determination, then what you go after must inevitably come to pass; and when it does, you will say, ‘Well, that was so easy!’”

As I read that passage, I thought of the parallel wisdom of another Indian guru, Satchidananda, and his bookThe Golden Present. I also thought of some Buddhist wisdom fromThe Undefeated Mind.

First, Satchidananda.

In The Golden Present, he tells us: “Life *should* have challenges. Without challenges it would be a bore. It is only in challenging situations that you really learn. Never give up hope. If the mind is strong, anything can be achieved.”

He also tells us: “Commitment is very important in life. Those who want to lead a spiritual life are here to change all these things and to rebuild a better world. Remember that. You have a great task, and it’s not impossible. If you really put your heart and soul into that, you can do it. Begin with your own life. Let nothing shake you. You have to be really bold and strong to achieve anything in life. Be that bold. When you know that something is right, don’t hesitate to follow it. Certainly there may be obstacles, tests; but don’t give up. Even if you should fall down or make a mistake, get up and say, “No! The next time I’ll be strong.” Keep on going, like great mountain climbers, until you reach the top. If you really want to do it, you will be given the needed strength. You will have all the support. If you want it, you’ve got it; but your want has to be that strong.”

Now, some wisdom from The Undefeated Mind.

Alex Lickerman tells us: “The reason optimism yields results isn’t that we necessarily try *harder* when we think a goal is achievable; rather, we tend to try *more often.* Optimism, in other words, yields persistence, for nothing seems to keep us going like believing success is possible.”

Then he delivers one of the most inspiring passages in all the Notes I’ve created so far.

He tells us: “This, then, is what it means to possess an undefeated mind: not just to rebound quickly from adversity or to face it calmly, without being pulled down by depression or anxiety, but also to get up day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, decade after decade—even over the course of an entire lifetime—and attack the obstacles in front of us again and again until they fall, or we do. An undefeated mind isn’t one that never feels discouraged or despairing; it’s one that continues on in spite of it. Even when we can’t find a smile to save us, even when we’re tired beyond all endurance, possessing an undefeated mind means never forgetting that defeat comes not from failing but from giving up. An undefeated mind doesn’t fill itself with false hope, but with hopes to find real solutions, even solutions it may not want or like. An undefeated mind is itself what grants us access to the creativity, strength, and courage necessary to find those real solutions, viewing obstacles not as distractions or detours off the main path of our lives but as the very means by which we capture the lives we want. Victory may not be promised to any of us, but possessing an undefeated mind means behaving as though it is, as though to win we only need to wage an all-out struggle and work harder than everyone else, trying everything we can, and when that fails trying everything we think we can’t, in full understanding that we have no one on whom we can rely for victory but ourselves. Possessing an undefeated mind, we understand that there’s no obstacle from which we can’t create some kind of value. We view any such doubt as delusion. Everyone—absolutely everyone—has the capacity to construct an undefeatable mind, not just to withstand personal traumas, economic crises, or armed conflicts, but to triumph over them.”

All that to say: “We can.” And, “We will.”

All in. LET’S GO!

Question: You know what the FASTEST way to change your life is?

Answer: The fastest way to change your life is to STOP doing the things you know aren’t wise.

We need the Wisdom to know the game we’re playing and how to play it well. The Courage to have the (Loving) Curiosity to look at what’s working and what’s NOT working and the Self-Mastery to do the things we know we *could* be doing and to STOP doing the things we know we should stop doing.

Repeat. Spiraling up. FOREVER.

That requires a healthy level of Heroic Self-Compassion.

We bring the flashlight AND the hammer to the party—shining a bright light on the stuff that needs work and then bringing the hammer of discipline to change our behaviors.

Vernon Howard comes to mind.

In The Power of Your Supermind, he tells us: “Encourage yourself by remembering that any detection of negativity within you is a positive act, not a negative one. Awareness of your weakness and confusion makes you strong because conscious awareness is the bright light that destroys the darkness of negativity. Honest self-observation dissolves pains and pressures that formerly did their dreadful work in the darkness of unawareness. This is so important that I urge you to memorize and reflect upon the following summary: Detection of inner negativity is not a negative act, but a courageously positive act that makes you a new person.”

Spotlight back on YOU. What’s working? What needs work? What will you do about it?

Here’s your flashlight. And your hammer. Get to work, Hero!

Do you want to be victorious in life?

First, we must know the ultimate game we’re playing and what TRUE victory looks like.

Second, we must KNOW that a) we can achieve ultimate victory and b) it’s not going to be easy!

Third, and most importantly, we need to DO THE WORK and NEVER GIVE UP.

Eknath Easwaran and Abraham Maslow come to mind.

InFuture Visions, Maslow tells us: “Anybody, any person whatsoever, under any circumstance whatsoever, can be a psychological success—at least in the above sense, of doing the best that one can and doing fully what one can—to be himself or herself and to accept the reality of himself or herself.”

InConquest of Mind, Easwaran tells us: “Ultimately there is not the slightest doubt that everyone who practices these disciplines with sustained enthusiasm can and will win this battle. The main question is how long we are going to let ourselves get knocked about first.”

We’ve been knocked about long enough.

Today’s the day.

It’s time to be victorious.

Let’s go, Hero!