When you look into the mirror, there is somebody looking back at you. Who is he? Do you feel that he is a friend or a foe? For those among us who are so fully in tune only with the positive aspects of their essence, in that every feeling they have, every activity they engage in, everything they are drawn to, every habit they possess, and every action they partake in is healthy, productive and self-fulfilling, then they are definitely in awesome shape. But there exists among the vast majority of us some kind of devious foe who wants to force us off the path towards well being and prosperity. He seeks to play tricks on us and to delay, regress, or otherwise hinder our rightful progress. That is the enemy within.
In a real sense, you need to overcome yourself in life in order to be successful. You need to conquer that aspect of you that just wants to take everything easy, to lay down and watch porn all day and play videogames all night. It's kind of strange because you would think that your own self only wants the best for yourself. After all, whatever hurts you will also hurt yourself, and whatever benefits you will be good for yourself, so why would yourself want to do battle against your own self-interest? A most interesting question. Personally I believe that it can be partially explained by looking at the evolutionary process. You see, my guess goes along the lines that we never evolved to be "perfect" beings. So we can definitely get away with having all sorts of flaws and all kinds of nasty imperfections. Despite this, most of us manage to find a mate and reproduce offspring. Evolution is not about perfection after all. It is about being able to reproduce in a given environment. So you can have antagonistic impulses and be extremely flawed in various ways and have "bad" character traits and still manage to breed offspring, and it is quite irrelevant to anything else so long as you manage to pass on your genes to the next generation. Those genes that are considered by society and yourself to be unhealthy or bad are not necessarily going to be selected against as long as they do not interfere with your mating. And so you can pass on addictions, laziness, deviances, useless traits, etc. on down the line. So whatever "bad" traits you have may be genetic and natural. It is what it is. There is no such thing as a natural progression in evolutionary terms, according to our preconceived notions and imagined ideal. Nature does not care what we like to believe. Sometimes in some species there appears to be some kind of higher step-by-step progression, but that is merely by chance and merely because we perceive it to be so. There is no divine intelligence guiding natural organisms in the evolutionary process. We choose our own destinies.
But the main point of my message for this entry is to examine the ways we can sabotage ourselves, and how to combat against these pernicious and subtle enemies. The enemy which is our own self is the most powerful enemy you may face in life. It has the potential to ruin and devastate you beyond all hope. Just for one example look at all of those drug addicts out there, many of them homeless and in absolutely desperate condition. Do you think they wanted to end up like that? Obviously not, but it was something inside of them, something deep, that infected them with an irresistible urge to take the next hit and to keep getting doped up. I feel sorry for those victims who are overwhelmed by forces which are ultimately not within their control. Not having any kind of drug addict genes myself (as far as I am aware), I suppose I am blessed to not have to struggle with that particular demon. But unless we are "perfect" beings, we all have some kind of demon facing against us in one way or another. So that is why we must stay focused day and night, organizing our time and schedule. We have to rely only on ourselves to make things happen and to get things done. Do your best, with no exceptions and no excuses. Ultimately, you cannot control whether you succeed or fail. You cannot determine absolutely whether you win or you lose, but you can always choose how much you put towards anything in life, in terms of effort, diligence, careful thought and passion. Limitations such as sloth or fear are demons of the mind that need to be defeated utterly.
How can you conquer and overcome these awful tendencies and habits? To some extent, I suspect that you may not be able to. Whatever it is that is harmful to you or is not helpful may be a genetic trait that is impossible to dislodge. Your best shot is to deal with it as best as you possibly can, and focus on avoiding the worst potential damages it could inflict upon you. It could be something like simple laziness, or lack of motivation and initiative in life. A lack of initiative, laziness, not willing to apply yourself in a dedicated manner, being disinclined to work at high rate, being strongly inclined to avoid spending time in achieving goals and putting in the necessary elbow grease to get things done (and you better believe that it is going to take a tremendous amount of elbow grease to accomplish your dreams), can and probably will ruin your life in some way, over time. So watch out. Watch the hell out, because the price of not facing off against yourself and not winning against your negative side can be devastating. At the end of it all, you can be left with a gigantic mountain of painful regrets. Not only can you pay the price, but also those you care about, and all of the people whose lives you could have touched and brightened up, and the world as a whole would miss out on all that you would have to offer. You must conquer yourself in some ways in order to live and to be at your absolute best.
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