Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Conquer Yourself...

I came across this great quote today by Buddha:

"It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles.  Then the victory is yours.  It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell."



Man that dude was onto something....

Your biggest battle will always be with yourself...

If you're trying to accomplish a goal - be it a 5k, marathon, or Ironman - you have to quell the doubting Thomas in you that will crop up from time to time...  

If you're battling cancer, you have to draw on the strength that lies in areas of your soul deeper than you know existed...

If you're trying to get over the loss of a loved one, you have open your heart and your mind to the possibility that the person will live on forever - somewhere, somehow - be it in you, around you, or above you.... 

You are your biggest fan, your biggest critic, your biggest supporter, and your biggest doubter.  The times that you have succeeded are because you have conquered the part of you that wanted to surrender.  

And even when you haven't succeeded as you wanted, you may actually have won a bigger battle with yourself that you thought.  Cancer patients on their deathbeds often are more at peace than those of us who have a million breaths left in us.  Although they may have lost the battle for their lives, they won the war of finding themselves.  

Athletes who crawl across a finish line or who don't finish at all because their body has given out, may have lost the race...but they won the war in terms of tapping into a part of themselves they never knew existed.  

Sometimes the biggest victories in the war for finding yourself come at the expense of what you see as a lost battle...

Can you think of a time when you've been able to conquer yourself? 


2 comments:

Jen said...

Yes I can. I was afraid. Very afraid to make a change that would ultimately change my life's direction. Fear paralyzed me for years until one day, I simply surrendered to myself in that I knew what I needed to do and had been fighting with myself about it for years. When I mastered my internal fear, I found a source of strength that has yet to let me down. I am a much better person for refusing to allow myself to live in fear.

Life Through Endurance said...

Jen - you are the epitomy of someone who has conquered herself!! The fact that you changed your life course is a step that SO many are afraid to take! I hope that others (including myself) can find that same source of strength!!