Self-preservation is key. You don’t go into wars intending to die; you go in wanting to win.
To thrive in an environment created for your demise is the ultimate act of rebellion. Choosing happiness in a world designed to leech off your misery, fears, anxieties, and insecurities is the ultimate act of power and enhancement.
From a spiritual dimension, the war between good and bad is a battle as old as time. The bad is alluring, demeaning, enticing, and gives you a false sense of security through the illusion of shortcuts. Choosing the dark to advance in life is akin to being indebted to loan sharks that never wanted their money back. They wanted what they could obtain from you at a much cheaper price. They wanted you. After all, negotiating from a place of need, while the other party comes from a place of want, places you in the perfect exploitative situation. You become walking, talking, desperate prey.
Perseverance is one of the most difficult feats in the world. There’s a reason why the majority gradually drop out and minorities thrive. After all, human hierarchies exist. To get up again and again after being beaten down is grit. Doing it with a smile on your face is the ultimate reality hack, the true breakthrough, what leads to bending time and space. After all, connectivity is what permits humans to transcend and defy normative laws.
There are some things in this world that are worse than death. The loss of integrity and true authenticity are two of those things. You continue living life on auto-pilot, becoming a shell of yourself. Then, wondering why life passed you by as you simmer in bitterness and frustration, instead of true bliss.
The emotions of relief, contentment, connectivity, and gratitude already exist within you. It’s your duty in life to attain them, as pleasantness brings pleasantness. Like attracts like. Choosing good on a daily basis is alarmingly difficult, especially when discontentment and misery are your default states. After all, nurture plays an enormous role regarding our everyday state. The challenge is living beyond the discontent. The mentality marked by ‘only if I obtained x, then I would be y’. Instead going towards ‘I embody the y, and the x will be obtained’. This concept isn’t novel. Religious and traditions have marked this, from Islam, Christianity to Buddhism. There’s a common theme of transcending beyond the self, into the realm, to return back into the self. However, that’s light work. As I’ve said time and time again, you cannot bask in the light without confronting your dark. You must go through the depth and shadows of yourself, facing your demons and winning. After all, they are not your friends. This is an act of self-preservation. Many submit to darkness under the premise of self-sacrifice, believing they must suffer and endure endlessly to exist. To deem themselves worthy. This, my friends, is the ultimate scam of life. I urge you to ask yourself: Who benefits from your misery and feral-survival-like state? For yes, suffering is inevitable — but to find peace within the suffering via acceptance and forward momentum. Essentially, being your own beacon of light in the midst of the dark. You choose this dark, because there will be light. Ultimately, this is not self-sacrifice. This is self-preservation, as your darkness is intentional with a direction towards the light. Rather than self-sacrifice and the dwelling in the dark — under the false premise martyry.
Honestly is vital. For instance, you say you’ll be happy once you attain this or that or this. But, will you be? Will it be enough? What is enough? Usually, what is between us and ‘enough’ is our limitations. Our darkness. Our obstacles. Luckily, once we clear those limitations and attain genuine ‘enoughness’ — pegged to inherent honesty. We will manage to go through the dark into the light. From discontent to content. However, unluckily, the levels of darkness varies person to person. Some of us have cobwebs to dust out, while others of us have horror houses residing in asylum-like estates. It needs to be ripped apart, demolished, then built up again. Hence, for some, their inner work journey is lighter, for others, it is the battle of their lifetime. The cards we have been dealt is a matter of fate. Ultimately, it is up to us to play the game — and play it well. To clear the darkness, and clear it well.
In essence, do your inner work and watch your best fate unravel. Tap into your highest self, for that is self-preservation. That is true martyrdom. To live life and do whatever you can to preserve it. Then, thrive within it. Only in extreme circumstances does the preservation of others triumph over the preservation of the self. For example, a soldier submitting their life, to preserve the lives of the rest. That is nobility and preservation found in its rare group state. It is the exception, not the norm. To claim this as the norm — is a scam.
Beyond extremities, break down the facade of faux self-sacrifice. Do the inner work work, and tap into the essence of self-preservation. Enhance yourself, and that will positively domino into the enhancement of others. Help yourself to help others. Breathe into your oxygen mask first, before you help others. Live and influence others via living a life filled with integrity and watch the incredible crescendo of your life take place. Take a risk, become the best you can be, and choose light over the darkness of the abyss.