Finding victory in defeat and avoiding self sabotage
The angry man
“But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
The wilderness experience is described as a time when one goes through a spiritual, physical, psychological, or financial wasteland. Nothing visible grows in this wilderness, the days are extremely hot and the nights are lonely and frigid, there's no shade from the sun nor protection from the bitterly cold night winds. Life and motion are marked only by a distinct lack of life or motion; as time seems infinite and even your best efforts yield no positive results, sometimes just like quicksand, your struggles only sink you deeper in the mire.
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In time we start to doubt our ability to get out of the wilderness, we might even begin to believe this is where we belong, this is how it should be – a life of nothingness is our lot and exactly what we deserve. These thoughts mark the moment when the fire within dies out and we lose the fight. If this was all there is to I,t that would have been fine, as accepting defeat only means you've stopped looking for a way out. However, the possibility of stumbling by accident into an exit always exists – and this could've been likely if not for the self-destructive emotional and behavioral shifts that accompany accepting defeat.
These emotional and behavioral shifts work to minimize the possibilities and cloud the opportunities around us. Please pay close attention to the next few paragraphs, if you don't get what I'm saying at first, kindly read it over again, it's quite important to understand the next part of our discussion.
We become resigned with our situation and start to see every setback or disappointment around us as another confirmation in our belief that we are unlucky or doomed to this low existence by bad luck or our circumstances, this is the greatest lie we often tell ourselves. Unfortunately for us, the effect of this belief in our bad luck is self-fulfilling as we stop taking the risks necessary to get out of the wilderness because we have already predicted failure and stopped believing there's any other way out other than being rescued. This turns us into ready prey for those around us who promise miracles and solutions that do not involve fighting the problem, most times the prescribed solutions would involve becoming a tool to solve whatever the miracle worker wants in life for themselves.
Snake oil salesmen of all shapes and sizes are ready to take advantage of the hopeless. Some ask us to believe we can bribe God with our earthly possessions, even though there's no evidence of that in the holy books; while others may want us to go to holy war while they sit back and preach to us about the rewards of dying for God.?Please never stop believing in your abilities, no matter how bad things are, for even the darkest of nights have always been followed by sunrise in the morning.
We often define ourselves by our appendages – cars, jobs, and other material possessions. When any of these is taken from us by circumstance, we tend to feel that we have somehow become less than we used to be, and we let this affect our sense of who we are; this manifests outwardly to those who know us as a lack of confidence or self-esteem.
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We also tend to become hyper-emotional and start to decimate our network of friends and family – the same people who should be our support structure. We do this in a few ways that are so subtle to ourselves that we do not even notice what we are doing; yet so obvious to our friends and family that they cannot miss it. We become withdrawn into ourselves, too ashamed of our circumstances to be sociable, and on the rare occasions that we leave our cocoon, we are overly touchy about any joke, statement, or conversation that might be at our expense. We start to believe that we are being picked on because of our circumstances and develop a victim mentality. This paranoia and quickness to take everything personally can be a burden on those who love us as they are usually the most affected by our bad attitude, having to tip-toe around us so as not to hurt us.
This behavior can be tiresome for our friends and family and eventually it breeds a vicious cycle where they start to avoid us and we take this as a confirmation that they don't like us, then we retreat further away from people as we lose our faith in humanity and start to believe no one cares. This bitterness further drives people away from us until we are completely isolated with no one to work with us on getting out of our predicament.
At the very time we need our friends and family the most, we isolate ourselves unknowingly.
What I want to share with you is that within the wilderness experience lies the cauldron from which greatness is formed. It is the ultimate test of resolve to maintain a positive mindset. While seeming to lose control of your environment, you stand to gain supreme control of your mind and to discover new strengths, new pathways, and new opportunities, - that is the universal trait of the masters. If you find yourself in a wilderness, please do not despair as this would not be helpful and would probably serve to make your stay in the wilderness longer.
See it instead as an opportunity to grow, there's no real growth that doesn't involve defying adversity. If you play video games, you can call it a 'boss fight' which would grant you access to the next level if you win, or at least give you bonuses and skill points for the next boss fight. Although the remains of those who did not survive the wilderness litter the wayside, even when your fears and insecurities tell you that you're not good enough to overcome your predicament, even when the facts and statistics aren't in your favor; keep your focus and continue your journey, it is worth your while - no one comes out of the wilderness experience without growing stronger, wiser and more in tune with their inner self.
One can never know the skill of the sailor while the ship is in harbor, just as one can never know their strengths until they've been tested to the limit. I usually give myself courage in the wilderness by reminding myself that I've been through hardship before and that even the biggest problem of today would probably be a faint memory by this time next year, this has always been true for me so far.
There is victory in defeat for those who see it as an opportunity to grow, just as there's defeat in victory for those who take it as a sign that they have achieved perfection. It's all in the mind.
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