Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
Interpretation
Resistance often signifies the importance of our actions to personal growth.
Steven Pressfield's quote suggests that the level of resistance we encounter in pursuing certain actions or calls in our lives is indicative of their significance to our personal evolution. When we feel the strongest pushback or reluctance, it is often a sign that what we are trying to achieve is crucial for our development and growth as individuals.
In practice
In a motivational speech about overcoming fears, one might use this quote to encourage individuals to pursue their dreams despite the resistance they may feel.
Late at night have you experienced a vision of the person you might become, the work you could accomplish, the realized being you were meant to be? Are you a writer who doesn't write, a painter who doesn't paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is.
It is one thing to study war and another to live the warrior's life.
The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.
When we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen... Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.
You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At eighteen he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study... Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it overstatement but I'll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start World War II than it was for him to face a blank square of canvas.
Itβs better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.
I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for lifeβs essential absurdity.
I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.
There's no better way to test a person than to put them in the middle of a war. That's clearly going to show what kind of a character you're telling a story about.
Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us when, in fact, it's the thing that's really preventing us from taking flight.
But the things that we feel most deeply we ought to learn to be silent about, at least until we have talked them over thoroughly with God.
When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.
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