🔵 By Timothy Brunner. Photo by lauragrafie.
Today I am going to try to turn over a new leaf. For me, that is a significant enterprise. I am not very open to advice or direction. Call it a mixture of trust issues and a natural intelligence that leads me into seeing too many holes in the advice others offer. Too bad that I so often fail to look closely enough to see the holes in my own counsel! That aside, I still prefer my own counsel a vast majority of the time. This new leaf which I am trying to turn has nothing to do with accepting advice, though, so there is at least one mountain that does not need to be moved. Now, what I am going to try to focus on is giving up some of my recent battles in order to focus on the war.
I have been miring myself in the day to day struggles in my life and conducting myself as if every single fight is worth any sacrifice for a victory. I know… I, especially, know… that this is not how to position oneself for power. Small battles lead to wins or losses… not victory or defeat. I am risking the outcome of winning while still being defeated and that is not acceptable.
I just haven’t been able to rise above the emotions of the moment, lately. I hope to change that. My focus has been short sighted due to my hopelessness. My decision on a day to day basis have nearly no effect on the final outcome of my life, so what is the point of sacrifice? You sacrifice one thing to gain something greater, but there is nothing greater to achieve when I will die in prison regardless.
I have allowed that to color my view too much for too long. I need to focus on being in the best possible position to take advantage of any change that may arise. That is a lot of “ifs” and “maybes”, but is that not what hope sounds like? Placing myself on “death ground” leaves me unable to adapt later if that becomes necessary. I have always been at a disadvantage in my battles, so adaptable strategy has served me more than any show of force. Aikido taught me to use another’s own force against them.
Time to remember who I AM. I can only be who I am. Who am I? Refocusing is something I use to do often but have not done in a while. Time to return to a proven strategy…