The post I wrote a couple days ago Learn To Smile reminded me of a quote I was trying to ingrain into my subconscious. The quote is “A warrior knows how to entertain himself.” Back in Alexander the Great’s time, armies had to travel thousands of miles to reach the battleground. The journey consisted of many days of walking and a few days of proving their strength and courage.
This 1,000-mile journey is like our lives, 90% is walking towards the place that will define our lives and the 10% is the climax ( meeting our next love, getting the dream job, buying a house.) But many of us take for granted 90% of the journey and we fail to reach the dreams we had. Josh Waitzkin in his book The Art of Learning says this about the 90% of the journey,
Not only do we have to be good at waiting, we have to love it. Because waiting is not waiting, it is life. Too many of us live without fully engaging our minds, waiting for that moment when our real lives begin. Years pass in boredom, but that is okay becuase when our true love comes around, or we discover our real calling, we will begin. Of course the sad truth is that if we are not present to the moment, our true love could come and go and we wouldn’t even notice.
Real warriors know how to make the 90% of the journey count. They have fun, they celebrate it, they sing songs, develop their strengths and get stronger. They are masters at not getting bored, they know how to laugh and keep moving.
Those who can’t make the journey get sad because they don’t have everything they want right away. They don’t know how to have fun waiting or make themselves laugh when things get boring so they become depressed.
This skill of being able to have fun with ourselves allows one to control the energy when things are tough or boring. When I am out with a girl I am not trying to entertain her and keep her smiling. I am trying to entertain myself. If it things get boring it is up to me to have fun, “I’m like let’s kiss her, let’s see what happens if anything it is going to make things interesting.
Because for me it is making my journey fun and entertaining. You can try to make other people happy but it may never work.
If I can be fun and tough when things are mundane, then watch out when situations arrive that are wild and hot.
It all happens with not taking for granted the boring. 90% of our life will be boring if we let it.