Unshakable Force

I've been told that language shapes culture. 

The leader in a group of friends can be identified by who came up with the catch phrases/one liners/cheesy puns of the group.

 I would like to think within my blog I have created my own language. I use certain words and terminology that has resonated inside of me through other sources. My goal, is to believe the words I use, but sometimes I use words that I don't take the time to define. A responsible reader would go and look things up on his/her own time, but there is one word in particular that is screaming at me.

Willpower.

• self-control: the trait of resolutely controlling your own behavior.
  
  
• The unwavering strength of will to carry out one’s wishes.
   
• is self-discipline and determination.

I have borrowed this word from a source of inspiration for me. Most of you know that I am a comic book reader. I just love how a story can have my emotions wrapped around its fingers. One character never fails to do this. 

I'm not going to talk about Hal Jordan, although he is the character I'm drawing inspiration from at the moment. He has an unshakable will.

 Having a strong willpower means that you'll be able to look your deepest fear dead in the eye without flinching. I write a lot about fear. It's hard not too. Fear has led man to do horrible things and I know that it's what causes most pain.

Not everyone has strong willpower. That's not to say it's unobtainable. On the contrary, it's a totally reachable goal. 

How many times have you found yourself alone feeling weak and abandoned?

Weakness, is what causes us to fail more than anything. Stumbling over road blocks is a far too periodic feeling for me. I can understand falling to your weakness, but what I can't understand is losing hope that one day you'll overcome even your deepest one.

Have you ever had a friend come to you about a situation and they don't know what to do?

You try to help them through it, but they keep going back to how they don't believe in themselves?

It's heartbreaking. It's demoralizing. It's never pathetic.

We've all been there. How do you encourage someone to never settle for defeat? 

Do you show them with your own life or are there words that can help give them the strength necessary?

 If there are words they lie here in this quote:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

-Theodore Roosevelt 

Having a strong willpower is to have a soldier mindset. It's about devoting yourself to a cause or an ideal entirely all for the sake of whatever it is.

It could be for someone you care about or everyone you care about. It could be about injustice or it could be about helping a complete stranger.

"The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it."
-Ronald Spiers from Band of Brothers 

The quote ends an exchange between a fearless soldier and one caught in fear. As a soldier, you have to fight. If you don't, you will die.

Kill or be killed.

Most people repeatedly fall to their fear.

You can become crippled if you let fear control you, which leads to inaction. Often times, we lose ourselves to an inability to make movement.

Fear only controls when it's allowed to. When someone finds the strength to move forward, amazing things can happen, but finding that strength is the tricky part.

To overcome fear, you must first look at hope. Hope can be a powerful driving force, but sometimes it can be negative. The fact of the matter is, hope can stop us from living. What happens is we find something to look forward to, and for some reason we become afraid of losing it, even if we don't have it. Especially if we don't have it.

So what do we do?

We put it on a pedestal. We idolize it. It becomes our priority and we give up everything for it.

Hope can be a danger to someone running on willpower.

Where does that leave us?

It leaves us aimlessly hoping, when opportunity is right in front of us. This can be destructive and dangerous. Ultimately, I think we care far more than we should about our own safety. Life without risk is just as deadly as dying young.

The man I am tomorrow relies on the man I am today to do something. The decisions I make, the steps that I take, all factor into the future. 

Sometimes all it takes is a dose of self-confidence. It's hard to find that, but when you do find a source that brings you great confidence, hold onto it and use it. Let it talk you into greatness.

We are all meant to shine. It doesn't matter how dark or scary life gets, you shine.

You shine so that others will see light. You shine so that you can be a beacon of hope.

A barricade of strength.

Where does this all come from, well, we have to end at the beginning.

 It comes from The unwavering strength of will to carry out one’s wishes.

 Willpower. 

 Where will you find your strength?

-Christopher Peters