The Strongest Held Emotion Dominates
Each of us is the Hero in an epic tale. We travel through scene after scene. Lurching from disaster to the peaks of human experience. Being beaten over and over, yet coming back despite the odds. Overcoming complacency, fear and every other obstacle in our way.
Is your life gripping and life affirming?
Is it a story of overcoming the odds to a heroic achievement of what is meaningful to you?
Or have you settled for the mundane because it is comfortable?
Is your heart alive with purpose and passion?
Or is it anesthetized with comfort?
Today this is what I would like to talk about. None have ever walked this earth and lived a life unworthy of mention. Some who are dazzled by worldly score-keeping might think so. But not from a deeper, broader perspective.
Like the Surfer seeking excitement in the waves, we are faced with wave after wave of tumult that seemingly attack us. Yet with practice, we can overcome our fear of the waves and use the very thing that terrified us to fuel our exhilarating ride.
There is only fear that stands between you and your dreams. Yet fear is the Great Imposter. The Great Illusion.
Every situation, every goal that you may hold, every conflict you engage in, every problem you face is only Life challenging how greatly you value your intended outcome. When you fold in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, Life knows you truly never valued the goal and so it does not give it you. When you stand firm and demand the result, no matter how terrifying the fear or how daunting the mountain, Life has to give in to you.
This is the Art of Mastering Life.
Learn to love the problems, for it is they that wake you from the mediocre life of fear, sloth and complacency.
Conflict was never your goal. Easy was never the path you chose. Nothing can ever match the pure exhilaration of mastering the wave that once struck fear into your very being.
Remember this. In every conflict situation, whether it be with another, or a tug of war with Life for what you desire, or your own tangled thoughts…
the strongest held view, emotion or goal dominates.
Always.
Next time you are confronted by an angry Customer, your child in a full out tantrum, or your Partner in full battle…
the strongest held emotion will dominate.
Just watch, either yourself, or others in such a situation. One, usually the one who is most angry, will suck the other into their world. You’ll find that often one begins as being calm. But the sheer intensity of the other’s fury, like a raging fire, overcomes their calmness and so they join the other in rage.
Yet if there is one who refuses to get drawn into battle, then the other will be smothered by their calmness like a fire smothered by a blanket.
photo credit: Don Fulano
Sometimes someone will hold onto their argument despite it obviously having no sound reason. This is because it holds such emotional power for them that they are more afraid of giving it up. In such a case, the other person will be unlikely to give up their position and they will be in for a protracted onslought. But the fact remains that, even though they won’t win the argument logically, they are likely to suck the other person in to their emotional state.
In just the same way as every argument is settled by who most strongly holds to their position Life tests people before they achieve their goals. Just as in an argument the other will strip away your false reasoning, Life will first fail your attempts by showing the false reasoning in your plans. So the more intelligent your plans, the less pain you will have to suffer for your art. If you do not really value your goal and you are not really prepared for it, you will suffer so greatly that you will give up.
Foucault pointed out that an Institution was strengthened the most by those who opposed it. So too can you be strengthened by your adversity. When you keep coming back stronger, by using the feedback Life has given you, to make your case with stronger and stronger conviction, you become unstoppable.
Sometimes people ask what would you do, if you knew you couldn’t fail?
Yet you cannot fail. Not if what you are doing is really, truly of value to you. Because if it really is your mission, you will have the aptitude and ability to achieve it. But your story may be one that has many knockdowns and setbacks before you get to the end. But if it is held strongly enough, that you dilligently and intelligently pursue it, it will come true eventually.
Often if you are to listen to Psychologist, the media and so on, you would think the problems of humanity are of a lack of valuing themselves. This isn’t truly the root though.
The truth is that there is a lack of valuing things that transcend ourselves. There are few people willing to die for their mission. And you cannot live until you are prepared to die.
photo credit: bobster1985
Go find what it is that means more to you, than you do. Then pursue that with more passion than you have ever pursued anything before. And when the world comes to batter your dreams into submission… Remember if you hold firm, you will master Life and it will have no choice, but to give you what you desire.
Fear, in all of it’s forms, is only a test. Life tests your mettle to see how honestly you value your goals, how true your Character and integrity are. Succumb to the challenge and it is clear that you were never serious anyway.
Everyone says they value X, but fill them with fear, give them seemingly impossible circumstances and most will change their mind. Overcome the fear and you will see it was only an illusion all the time. I’ll bet there was a time in your life that you feared the dark. Yet turn the light on and what was there to be afraid of?
People sometimes like the comfort of thinking that they have a Guardian Angel. Yet you also play this role. Every idea comes into the world through a sponsoring Guardian. If the Guardian cannot love it and hold it true strongly enough to bring it to fruition, than like the weak Spartan Baby it is left to perish on the hills.
Will you protect your Progeny (your ideas, skills, values) like a Lioness protects her Cubs?
photo credit: BRIMAC THE 2ND
Or will your legacy die because you cannot maintain love in the face of fear?
