“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

—MARCUS AURELIUS

Strength

What is strength? Strength is defined by Merriam-Websters dictionary as

the quality or state of being strong : capacity for exertion or endurance

How many times have you undertook an endeavor, only to quit shortly later? I have always liked to define strength as your ability to affect your will on the world. Your ability to have an effect on things around you. To not buckle and break when faced with resistance or obstacles, to persevere, to endure.

We must know who we are, know where we are and know understand why we are here and what our purpose is. We must fix in our mind what it is that we need to do, set our sights on a goal and no longer put it off. We must work daily at working towards our goals, by building smart and effective habits, while abandoning our bad habits and quiting our addictions. To optimize our effectiveness as we grow, we will need to get organized, reminding ourselves of that we only have ourselves to blame for failure, and thus therein lies our ability to succeed. We discipline ourselves knowing that many things come down to our will to overcome and make things happen. That habits don’t always start easy and it takes dedication and continual effort to reach completion. And then through strength of mind, body and spirit, we continue to persevere until the end. When is the end? When we die.

Strength is our capacity to endure and overcome difficulty. To keep trying again after everytime we fail. If you don’t think you are not strong, that might be true, but it’s not a death sentence, you do have the ability to increase your strength. All babes are born utterly helpless, but almost all grow out of that and into a state of relative self-sufficiency. We learn to walk, talk, and feed ourselves. We gain control of our motor skills, we grow. We all naturally grow stronger to point, and for many they stop there. Never fully understanding that we all possess the ability to increase our strength. And this is what we must endeavor to do.

Discussion

What is something that you initially failed at, yet later achieved victory in? What is something that you are still working to achieve victory in? What is your obstacle, how can it be your way?