Instincts and Willpower

Instincts and Willpower

         Humans have an overpowering instinct for competition.  When one has a goal as a human you feel a need to complete it.  We want to beat others and prove that we are as good as anyone else, which is a goal for all of us.  As humans we want to make goals and succeed in them.  If one succeeds then they have gotten to a point where they have reached fulfillment and are happy with where they are and are ready to make a new goal.  People love to have goals, it gives them a sense of purpose.  Without purpose we have nothing, there is no point.  Not only must you reach your goals to succeed, but you must reach them with your souls intact.  If you do something to ruin your sense of pride and respect, you can not go back, but you shouldn’t regret either.  Everything happens for a reason, I know it’s such a cliché, but if you want to have that fulfillment of success, then you must make peace with yourself.
         My goals, at the moment are confusing and jumbled, there are many different things that now contrast with my original plan, but I have the belief that these are just fleeting desires.  Ones that are not logical and so thus should be pushed to the side, but not forgotten.  To get rid of these wants they must be entertained until I become bored with them.  If in the slight chance that I do not become bored, they can still be used for fun, but these would not be logical careers.  My goal from when I was young was to work with animals.  My love for these innocent creatures runs deep and will never change.  It has not in the last six years or possibly more, and I can’t imagine myself doing anything different. 
         Of course this also might be because it is a safe idea and therefore I would want to stay with it, because anything else would mean change and therefore is frightening.  Which goes into another human instinct, the fear of the unknown.  Some bring this on as a new challenge and overcome it, as I try to do, but many just want to stay safe and do what they know.  Thinking about it I may try to do those other, formerly fleeting, thoughts.  Staying in the safe zone is not what life’s about.  I heard a quote once, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and preserved body.  But rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ‘What a ride!’”  That would be success for me.  That does not mean you need to go out and look for a fight, or the riskiest thing to do, but when the opportunity comes, don’t turn it down because you’re afraid.  Don’t let fear rule your life, but use your intuition to know the dangerous situations from the possibly good opportunities that come your way.
         On a documentary called What the Bleep a group of monks did a study on water and they found that it will change its shape due to the good or bad that it experiences.  They wrote different words on the same type of water in a bottle and the water changed shape.  The ones with positive words were beautiful and pieces of art in themselves, but the one with the negative words, “I hate you,” it did not look nice.  If it had emotions I would say it was angry and depressed.  Think about it, our body is made up of mostly water, thus, logically, our thoughts do have something to do with our mood, in fact it has a lot to do with it.  So the next time you hear your teachers say it’s all in the mind, it truly is.  So do not just pass it off as another thing to ignore, instead think about it a bit and try to change your way of thinking.  It could help out a lot.
         Yes it’s true you may get screwed once in a while, actually, a lot, but this should not stop you.  Yes there are bad people but there are also good.  Just like there may be angels to watch your back, but there may also be demons to break it.  Success is life and overcoming the obstacles it presents and keeping peace with yourself and others.  People make up the world and therefore you will meet many of them, some you’ll like many you won’t, but the world doesn’t change for you.  It changes around you, you just have to choose to change with it.  There will be many experiences, some good, some bad, but if you take it all in stride and overcome your personal obstacles you will be successful and you will be happy.