Balance, it’s a word that you’re going to see come up time and time again in my writings and for good reason. There is no one single thing that a man needs to succeed in life, to become all that he can be, to become a warrior poet. There is a mix of things. Even with the greatest things if a man does not develop other aspects he’ll be limited, like a athlete with only one arm or leg.
A man could be the wisest man in the world but if he has no strength how will he make use of it? Likewise a man could be the strongest man in the world but has no wisdom how long before he comes to ruin? Not very. There are some things that you should go all in, in with life. Like to building of strength, the acquirement of wisdom, and other things. But even then you still need balance and to make sure you pursuing all the things that you need for living the best life possible.
Which brings me to the iron and the fire. I myself have two heritages, two ancestries, two cultures that I’ve studied and tried to learn the most of as they flow in my blood. Those are Irish and German. One thing that German have been known for is their discipline and one thing the Irish have been known for is their passion. And I was thinking how combining these two things could very well create the strongest and longest lasting nation on earth.
Combining the iron of discipline with the fire of passion.
The Will To Power & Man
Man can achieve just about anything he sets his mind too, so long as he has the willpower to go after it. Will shapes the world around us for better and for worse. The development of willpower is one of the most important aspects of becoming a man. Combine willpower with faith and you can move mountains, you can change the world, you can change yourself. Faith that a thing can be done and willpower to go about everyday bringing that dream into reality. A potent combination.
Much like discipline and passion. We’ve spoken on passion a little bit before but I want to take a little deeper dive here as I’m using a slightly different definition. In this case I don’t mean passion as in something your passionate about like becoming a story teller, professional fighter, a certain business, a lot of land with a big family, or whatever. Those are all great but separate from what we’re talking about here. We addressed that before.
Now I mean passion as in the fiery aspect of human nature. The thing that makes you want to fight, sing, dance, make love, and run around howling at the moon. That primal nature that flows with life. That thing that gives life to your soul, that’s what I mean by passion here. Passion can be a potent fuel that powers a wonderful and life filled life or it can be the means that leads to destruction, often violent.
Discipline is doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done regardless of external circumstances or how one feels. A person who is disciplined forges ahead and does what needs to be done. Without passion they can become like an automaton, like the terminator. An unfeeling robot who plows ahead. Which is not something we want either, again balance. We want to the fire of passion to fuel our engine of discipline.
How To Find The Balance
Start with understanding passion and forging discipline. Discipline is one of the most important traits that you can build in life. Look for things that’ll build discipline into your life. The best thing is the competing of daily goals to accomplish a larger goal. So the most obvious example is say weight loss. Say you want to lose ten pounds of fat and gain five pounds of muscle over the next three months. So that’s a three month goal. Let’s say you have the following daily goals.
Do prescribed workout for that day, regardless if it’s going for a light walk or heavy squatting, eating enough protein to be in positive nitrogen balance, no consumption of vegetable oils, refined sugars, or other banned foods, get seven hours of sleep.
Each day you check off those that you did and leave blank those that you did not. Over time you will build discipline. This is just one way to do it, competing in something is another way and there are many others. Now we come to passion. With passion its powerful to understand where certain urges and desires come from.
Why certain things animate you and where you are in control of passion and using it in a healthy way and where passion has gotten the best of you and led you to negative expressions of high passion. Try to figure out why. With passions, like with everything else, ask yourself why, why, why.
Why did you do this? Why did you react in this way? Understand what a healthy expression of a passion is an what an unhealthy expression is. For example it’s good to work out and go to the gym, it’s bad to be so obsessed with fitness it becomes the only thing in your life. Again balance. Man is a multi-faceted creature you need to have multiple interests and things going on in your life, though one may naturally dominate it.
For example if you’re a full time novelist then you need to be somewhat obsessed with that craft, likewise if you’re competing in the Olympics then that sport will be an obsession, and in this case this is not an unhealthy use of passion. So again it depends on circumstances and general wisdom.
You’ll know when passion is leading your wrong and when it’s firing up your life to be the best it can be. Maybe not at first but if you start paying attention and asking questions you’ll gain the wisdom that you need.
Harnessing The Fire & Building The Discipline
Discipline. Passion. Both of these things are powerful on their own but combined their power becomes exponential. Direct the fire through the iron and be amazed at what can be accomplished. Achieve the goals that you have, no matter how big they seem. Live the life that deep down you always knew you wanted to live but maybe before thought an impossibility. Accomplish more than you ever thought possible and become the man that you were supposed to be, that you were created to be. Do this through the iron of discipline and the fire of passion.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
