Skip to main content

Picking a Fight



It’s nearly impossible to passively coast through life. While some may be characterized by being proactive and others as reactive, everyone must choose a fight in which to engage. Boiled down to a very simple dichotomy, you can fight for the things you do want in life or be relegated to fight against the things in your life you don’t want.

Fighting for the things you do want means identifying and pursuing the elements of greatest value to you. The aspects of life that really make you tick, that make your heart come alive and ignite a burning within your soul. These are the things you may be able to exist without, but in their absence, you wouldn’t be truly living. Whether it’s your passions, a vocational calling, your family or a cause, these areas refuse to be quieted within your spirit and demand deliberate and determined action to pursue.

And if you aren’t fighting for those things of greatest value, you will likely end up fighting against negative factors that have crept into your life in the absence of the former. Mediocrity, laziness, boredom, lack of fulfillment, dead-end jobs, toxic relationships, directionless wanderings, noisy distractions and hollow comforts are the things you will find taking up residence in your life where your passions and callings were meant to be built.

This is not to say these battles don’t happen simultaneously. I believe they do. But I also have come to learn that the more I am fighting for and filling my life with that which is truly precious, the less room there is for the dross and empty pursuits to invade my thoughts and my time.

So, hands up. Chin down. Go pick your fight!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Toxic Humility

We have all seen false humility: the guy who tries to hide his arrogance with feigned modesty. It’s usually pretty obvious and always obnoxious. But there is also another variation of false humility out there: toxic humility. This is often displayed in self-deprecating talk and a lack of self-confidence, belittling or undermining one’s own talents and abilities. The danger in this kind of behavior is twofold: it is too often accepted as true humility and like a virus, it spreads doubt and disbelief. To clarify, it is not that the bearer of this toxic humility isn’t honest about his view of himself. That is the very issue: he absolutely believes he has little value or utility. He thinks downplaying his own worth is humility but I disagree. CS Lewis said it best when he wrote, “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking about yourself less.” His point being, true humility is not an ever-present raincloud of self-doubt that follows you around. It’s a focus on...

The Art of Intentionality

  “Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others’ choices make you.” – Richie Norton   I am not even sure who Richie Norton is, but I love that quote! I imagine a ship drifting out to sea, pushed around by the wind and the waves. No course of direction, yet the captain is frustrated when the ship ends up dashed against the rocks, trapped on a sandbar or marooned on an inhospitable island. It is easy to complain when life takes us where we do not want to go. But who is really to blame if we have never set our sails to align us along an appropriate course? Do we blame the waves, wind and the weather? Or should we blame the captain of the ship? It is our life and our ship. We must set our sails with intentionality and determined choices. Otherwise, we are doomed to aimlessly drift along according to the choices and decisions of others. 

The Hungry Lion

  Early in my career, as I was struggling to both build up my clientele and provide food for my family, someone tried to encourage me by saying, “remember, the hungry lion hunts best.” At the time, that made sense to me. And it probably even provided some much-needed reassurance. But I have since come to think differently. I was a starving lion, and I learned a few things from the experience. Hungry lions get fatigued. They become desperate. They cut corners. They make unforced errors. But fed lions have their own issues. Their satiety can turn into selfishness. They get comfortable and then complacent. These lions do not hunt well either. I believe the lion who hunts best is not the hungry lion nor the satisfied lion, but rather the lion who hunts not for himself and his own hunger, but for the pride of lions around him. His drive is not his own need for nourishment; it is the hunger of those around him that motivates him. Our world is a hurting and hungry place. Not just ...