The Resistance: A War Within You

This piece was inspired by a dear friend who is a truly remarkable person that needs to be reminded about what’s holding her back. You know who you are. This is for you.

“The enemy is a very good teacher” the Dalai Lama

Consciously, every person is really two people; the person they are today and the person they want to become tomorrow.

Subconsciously, every person really lives two lives; the life they live and the unlived life within them.

What stands between those two people, those two lives, is the most toxic force on the planet;

The Resistance.

First written about by Steve Pressfield, it is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and broken New Year resolutions. 

The Resistance is within you but it is not part of you.

The Resistance is not the lizard brain.

Despite all the bad press around it, the lizard (or primitive) brain helped keep us alive as it was integral to our survival. Its only concerns are the “Four F’s”: Feeding, Fighting, Fleeing, and Fornication. It exists for survival.

Sabertooth tigers are long gone, but we all still jump out of fright when we hear a stick break when walking through the park.

The Resistance isn’t our emotional brain, nor is it our logical neocortex.

The Resistance is like gravity; an invisible force that pushes down on you when climbing up your personal mountains. It wants to keep you down. 

Unlike gravity, it gets stronger as you get closer to breaking through with your work, just as a magnet pushes back stronger as you approach with another magnet with the same polarity.

The more important the call to action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we feel toward pursuing it.

Genius vs The Resistance

Every person is a genius. We have all been endowed with our own form of genius and express it in different ways weekly, even daily.

Genius is a Latin term that Romans used to denote an inner spirit, holy and inviolable, that watches over us and guides us to our calling.

In animals, it’s instinct. In humans, it’s intuition.

When genius shines, it’s hard to hide, just as one can only hide the sun for so long.

But every sun casts a shadow, and that shadow is The Resistance. 

Social media, the internet, online shopping, Netflix binging. The Resistance loves these things. 

These are all tricks and tools of deception. 

“If I just watch one more episode of House of Cards, I’ll get my idea” or “I just need to take one more online course to be ready”. The Resistance aims to shove us away, distract us, lure us, and prevent us from doing the work.

The Resistance doesn’t play for fun. It plays for keeps and the moment we fight it we are in a war to the death.

So what kind of activities bring The Resistance out in full force? In his powerful book “The War of Art”, Steve Pressfield lays out this list in no particular order:

• The pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or creative art, however marginal or unconventional.
• The launching of any entrepreneurial venture or enterprise, for profit or otherwise.
• Any diet or health regimen.
• Any program of spiritual advancement.
• Any course or program designed to overcome an unwholesome habit or addiction.
• Education of any kind.
• Any act of political, moral, or ethical courage, including the decision to change for the better some unworthy pattern of thought or conduct in ourselves.
• The undertaking of any enterprise or endeavor whose aim is to help others.
• Any act that entails commitment of the heart. The decision to get married, to have a child, to weather a rocky patch in a relationship.
• The taking of any principled stand in the face of adversity. 

Simply put, anything that sacrifices short-term satisfaction for long-term growth.

David Bowie famously said that — 

Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.

And he’s right.

The cemetery always makes me sad because when I visit to pay respect to my ancestors I can’t help but think — how many people went to the grave with their music still locked up in their hearts? 

Don’t wait to grow old. Take action now.

Act with bravado, live with vigor, so when it comes your time to die, you will not be not like those whose hearts are filled regret, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. 

Greatness comes when you consistently show up every day with a deep love for the work so that when the day comes, you can sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

Omar M. Khateeb is medical device marketer with a focus on surgical robotics.

His interests reside in sales psychology, neuromarketing, and self-development practices.

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