A warrior is able to separate a person’s will from the outcomes they are involved in. Sometimes you are involved in a situation where it is your duty to make a positive impact yet you KNOW early on without a doubt that your impact will be insufficient to change the overall outcome to a positive one. You see clearly that there are numerous outputs effecting the outcome, including your own and that the majority of them are negative.
In such situations, this is where a person’s will to do what is right is truly tested. While the whole situation may end up negative, you can still be one of the people who is true to the solution. We all choose to be a part of the solution or the problem. There are no excuses for this choice. This is the choice that determines our character.
We all experience in this life moments where we are part of a bad cycle. Do we continue on the cycle or do we break it? Perhaps in our family there are norms that should not be normal, do we pass them on, or do we let those things end with us? Perhaps in our families there are norms that should be normal, do we actively work to continue those traditions or do we just enjoy an easy ride and go with the current generated by others?
In warrior philosophy, integrity is valued above all other values, perhaps you could say it is the culminating value. “With Integrity nothing else matters, without integrity nothing else matters”. Making what you say and do the same, making who you believe in being and who you are the same. We are NOT responsible for outcomes in this, we are responsible for OUR outputs and the influence that we have on the situations we are involved in.
There is a peace that comes from being true to yourself. One that cannot be stolen, one that cannot be surpassed. Often people worry about outcomes, they often blame themselves for negative outcomes that they did indeed do what they could to prevent. Warrior’s refuse the illusion of control. We do not control the world, nor do we even fully control ourselves. We exert influence upon ourselves and the outward world in concentric rings of influence. We are accountable for the ripples we create.
I remember a man who would never (in this life) recover his health decide to at least struggle to slide down the hill at a slower rate. While the battle ended in “defeat”, it still inspires me to this day. It inspires me (and others) to fight as hard in my fight to improve my health while the battle is “winnable” as he did when it was beyond hope as most would consider it. Things can always get worse, they can always get better.
It is all about the will to DO WHAT YOU CAN WHEN YOU CAN. No more, no less. The patient, steady commitment to do what you can when you can is what a warrior should focus their will upon. If you strain beyond what you can do, you will end up inconsistent at best, or shut down at worst. If you allow complacency to lull you to sleep in your life, the results are the same although through a different means.
You have to move from where you are, not where you wish you were, but the commitment is the same, set your will to do what you can when you can. This is the commitment that makes a warrior a warrior. Regardless of outcomes which can cloud the real outputs of positive people or negative people involved in them, those that consistently do what they can when they can are those who are truly successful. Although this success must be considered in a sense that surpasses mere materialism.
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