Getting right to it.
The Law Of The Warrior Poet V – Have A North Star
We all need guidance. We all need a place where we’re headed. Without this we go in all sorts of directions, none of them usually very good. The human mind needs a guidance system, something to keep it on track and headed somewhere that we want to get to. You need to have goals. Small goals, medium goals, large goals, and life goals. How do you want to be remembered? What do you want your legacy to be? Your goals and your pursuit of them will largely determine how this turns out. What do you want your life to be specifically? What do you stand for?
Have small daily goals, goals related to hitting good habits and no doing bad. Goals that are about building virtues and culling vice in the true sense of each word. Small daily goals that are about brick by brick, step by step building the life that you want and moving you in the direction of accomplishing and achieving your dreams. Then you want medium goals, goals that take anywhere from three to six months generally. Goals that are going to be bigger steps in the journey to becoming who you want to be.
And then large goals, goals that take a year to a decade. This could becoming a profession in a given field, having a plot of land and home that are your own, having a healthy, happy family. Whatever. And then have a life defining goal. What you want your legacy to be. What you want to remembered for. Look at all these goals. Start with the biggest and work your way down from there.
Life goals and daily goals I recommend writing down. Medium and large goals you may write down somewhere and “forget”, though your subconscious won’t ever forget them. Keep track of your daily goals what you’re hitting and what you’re not. Because it’s the tracking of daily goals that’ll lead to the eventually accomplishment of the medium, large, and life goals. The daily goals are the ones with the power though you still need to have large overarching goals to know what the daily goals should be.
Let your goals guide and propel you across the dark and dangerous sea that we call life. Goals will keep you from going adrift and even if the big goals change, simply by picking any goal to pursue and going after it you’ll still be the better for it. Any direction is better than none. And in pursuit of worthy goals you will develop strength, wisdom, courage, and skill to accomplish what you want to accomplish in life and become the warrior poet.
Law Of The Warrior Poet VI – Help Yourself, Help Others
Most people get one of these but not the other. I’ve seen people who spend their lives attempting to help and serve others but because they don’t take time for themselves, because they don’t take time to look out for themselves first they end up in bad places. They don’t have the wisdom nor the strength to truly help others and change the world around them. They simply have a decent heart that wants to do good, which can be a good inclination when paired with wisdom and strength but can be foolish, harmful, and even lead to your destruction when just left on its own.
Then there are those that know they need to take care of themselves first. That investing in themselves in the wisest investment that they can make and that they need to look for themselves. But they stop there and never go beyond it. So they become sterile in a way. They don’t change the world around them or give back anything. They become black holes that suck everything in and give nothing back. They take and never give. They consume and never produce. They part way understand one part but not the other.
You have to understand and use both. First and foremost you need to help and invest in yourself. Get yourself straight before you expect to get your house straight and get your house straight before you get the neighborhood straight and so on and so forth. Most people can’t even get themselves straight and try to change the world which is an exercise in futility and foolish many times. Invest in yourself, take care of yourself, and then you develop the strength and wisdom, the wherewithal to actually help others.
Any fool can throw good intentions into the world and try to do good but they usually just end up tools for harmful ends. For someone who truly wants to do good they have to invest in themselves and develop themselves to a high level. Get the strength and wisdom required to do true good. Help yourself, then those immediately around you, then your community and tribe. But you come first, then others. Work on yourself first then, and mostly by example, can you help others.
The Path Of The Warrior Poet
Two more laws laid down and two more steps towards the complete path of the warrior poet. Have a north star, amid a constellation of stars. Have lifetime goals, a legacy that you want to be remembered for. Have large goals that’ll take anywhere from a year to a decade, medium goals that’ll take three months to a year, and then daily goals that make the whole thing move and work. Help yourself first and foremost. Invest in yourself before others. Develop the skill, strength, and wisdom to actually help others. And then worry about helping others. Get yourself fixed first, then your household, and then worry about others. Not saying you can’t do a good deed here and there, just that that’s the best order for things and will sow the most good fruit.
