Wake Up

The Awakening

One day, you wake up realizing that you are lying in the burning ruins of what used to be your perfect world, ashes and smoke everywhere. Your vision is clouded, you feel fear, regret, anger and confusion is upon you. You have so many questions, and almost no answers. Rejoice, for this is the worst day of your life yet, but at the same time it is the day that will change who you are, that will define you as a man. It is the day that you wake up. It is better to be awake in the world that is burning, rather than dream in the perfect world.  Because when you are truly awake you can rebuild everything around you, make it stronger and bigger and take responsibility for your life, but the ones who sleep will keep burning until there is nothing left.

The Enemy

 

Upon waking up from your happy slumber you will encounter the strongest enemy that you have ever faced. That enemy is you. Your world is not burning because somebody set it on fire, your world is burning because you felt asleep and lost control. It might seem tempting to blame others because it is easy, it releases you from any responsibility for what is happening around you and most importantly it lets you go back to sleep because in your head you did nothing wrong, you were just sleeping while others did you wrong. This is your fear, your laziness, your incompetence telling you to give up and go back to sleep, to stop fighting. Because as human beings we hate change, we are scared of it and our brain will do everything to try and prevent any drastic change from happening. It is your responsibility to recognize this and fight it. Fight yourself, your habits, your fears until you prevail. In the empty battlefield of burning ruins you are the only one standing and you have only one enemy, either you emerge victorious from the battle, or let the enemy defeat you and put you down to sleep again.

The Weapons

Unlike your enemy you have the upper hand in this fight because you have two very powerful weapons at your disposal. A shield and a sword. First weapon is your sword which is your anger, it will give you the needed motivation for the change. Anger is a dangerous weapon, it is like a nuclear bomb; very powerful but one slight misuse and the results will be catastrophic, so you have to direct your anger very carefully. Direct it only to improve yourself, never to hurt the others. The second weapon is discipline. In order to make permanent changes a man needs time to improve, to become stronger and to rebuild his empire. This period of time will not be easy, and the progress might not always be obvious, it is at this period that your enemy will be the strongest and you will need a shield which is your discipline. Discipline will keep you going, even if you do not see the end of the road, even if the attacks of your enemy are getting stronger it will protect you from them until you make it. If you know that you are doing the right thing, if you know that it will bring you to the place where you want to be engrave it on your shield and don’t stop no matter what.

The Battle

The battle that I am describing is completely internal. We go through our daily lives passing people by and never noticing their struggle. Some of them have already lost the battle and probably will never make it, some are still fighting and some have never even woken up from their dream, but I guarantee you that winning this battle is the most beautiful and powerful feeling ever. It is this time, that all the burning stops and you regain yourself. Defeating that enemy you stand alone victorious. It is winning this internal battle that brings true change and defines you as a man. So if you are awake, don’t you dare to ever go back to sleep, keep going until you make it, keep fighting until you win.