Being Point

Tag: struggle

  • “Strength Is Itself Victory”

    Victory can be very broadly defined if and when it is not limited to a conventional definition of winning.  Peace Activist, Daisak Ikeda, said:

    “Strength is Happiness. Strength is itself Victory.  In weakness and cowardice, there is no happiness.  When you wage a struggle, you might win or you might lose.  But regardless of the short-term outcome, the very fact of your continuing to struggle is proof of your victory as a human being.”

    Do your beliefs allow you to define victory as strength when you are engaged in a struggle?  How attached have you been to an old-paradigm definition of winning which has only recognized what might be called “the score on the scoreboard at the end of the game”?  How do we best reconcile our desire to have both a “winning score” as well as victory in how we have “played the game”?

  • Victory Is A Primary Motivator For Human Beings

    I once had the occasion to see Zig Ziglar speak to 12,000 people at the Anaheim Pond.  At an intermission, he drew my business card out of a big barrel of cards – which entitled me to win books and tapes (at that time) for a half dozen of his programs.  I went on stage to shake his hand, and I got to see how fun it is to stand in front of 11,999 people.

    He said that the primary motivator for human beings is victory – not winning over someone else, but personal victory.  Being victorious in this sense means manifesting a result that is consistent with your core values.  Joy and delight were primary among the core values that I felt in that moment – and he was right: it felt like victory.

    How do you define victory?  Has the concept of victory engaged competitiveness for you in the past?  If so, it may not be pure victory.  In fact, a focus on competition may miss the point of victory altogether.  What is the distinction between winning and victory?  There is no struggle in victory.