If You Give Up or Give In, They Win
Do what you can to stay strong.
I have massively reduced my time on social media. This is to avoid doomscrolling and doing harm to my mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
It’s not that I don’t desire to know what my friends and loved ones are doing. It’s that all the bad news, awful happenings, and ongoing ugliness is disheartening, upsetting, and can move all the way over to terrifying.
How in the hell did we get here? After decades of progress, how did society take such a willful, ugly, unhinged step backward? I could analyze this ad nauseam, look it over from every possible angle, and the conclusion won’t change: What I can do outside of me and my life is massively limited.
Capitulating to this insanity has become the norm on the part of media agencies, workplaces, and other institutions. Not a lot we can do, save choose where we shop with that in mind, protest and boycott as necessary, and so on.
What you can do is choose to keep fighting, keep taking stands, keep being you. Because if you give up or give in, they win.
There is, however, an important truth about winning and losing in these circumstances to consider.
It is not about winning and losing
The truth is that we are not in competition. I repeat, for those in the back, WE ARE NOT IN COMPETITION. Yet much of the narrative being presently framed in the world is that there’s not enough of “X”, we have a lack of “Y”, and “Z” is insufficient to sustain you. Oh, and “they” are the problem (as opposed to those pointing to “they” while raking in money and faux power for themselves).
The truth is that unless you’re playing a team sport like baseball or hockey, an individual sport like fencing or archery, or participating in a cooking competition or spelling bee, you’re not in competition. With anyone for anything.
What’s more, “they” aren’t taking anything away from you or using up all of any given resource. All of that is a false narrative intended to make you angry and disempowered.
The reality is that they want you hopeless, afraid, uncertain, and lost. That way, they can offer their bullshit form of guidance to a place they claim is better. Yet, looking at the reality, all they do is dismantle and destroy – what better is being built? Can you show me? I’ll wait.
While we’re not in competition, we are being set up to lose. Lose what? Sovereignty. Willpower. Freedom to be. If you give up or give in, they win because you stopped resisting them. But more than that, they win because you stop being true to you.
If you give up or give in, they win
As soon as you throw up your hands and cry, “I quit!” They win. If you stop being who you desire to be and allow them to take away your willpower, they win. When you remain silent as they take away rights, end freedoms, and destroy institutions in the name of “God”, “Trump”, “Musk”, or the like – they win.
When you stop being true to yourself, they win. But that’s not even the worst of it. No, worst of all you lose yourself, your will, your edge, and all that makes you the wonderful person that you are.
Here’s what I know for certain: You’re here. Right now. Today. As you read these words you’re living, breathing, existing.
The rest of your circumstances are not something I know. Likewise, you don’t know mine. Still, you can be your truest, most authentic self and do what you can to live the fullest, best life possible.
When you do this, when are choosing and deciding who, what, where, how, and why you are – you win.
Do what you can to stay strong
I write and share these blogs. Beyond this, I’m working on building my writing career with my fiction. Past that, I’ll attend protests for things I believe in and I will keep offering support to those who are being most oppressed and harmed.
I’ll do what I can to stay strong. That means, for me, less time on social media and the doom and gloom there, not diving too deeply into the news, and making active, consciously aware choices and decisions for living my life. Yes, that means practicing mindfulness.
We have more power than we allow ourselves to believe. Also, we have more power than our so-called leaders and their associates want us to believe. But the truth is that nobody but you can live for you. That means you keep going, one day at a time, and fight the good fight. Stay strong. Be yourself.
Easy? Nope. Worthwhile? Hell yes. But if you give up or give in, they win. That’s not something I care to see happen, how about you?
Are you in it to win it and live life on your best, most desired terms?
This is the six-hundred-eighty-sixth (686) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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