Warrior Wednesday #1

I only had two things on my Christmas wish-list: a new pocketknife, and a copy of The Hundred Rules of War by Tsukahara Bokuden.  The nice thing about short lists is that you usually get what you asked for.

The main reason I wanted that book is because I'd skimmed through it in the store several months ago and thought then that it would be one of those books that you could pick up, read a chapter, and then put it down OR you could take an entire week just to mull over each section or rule.  That's what I intend to do this year...take one idea, one rule from this book and present a Warrior Wednesday post.  The goal of these will be to get you thinking...sharing my thoughts and then posing some questions.  So, without further delay...let's jump right in.

"You cannot have pleasure without pain and you cannot have pain without pleasure.  Your struggles now will be rewarded in the future, so you must endure." (pg. 16)

The relationship between pain and pleasure is often viewed as dualistic in nature...one battling the other for supremacy.  What if we could change the way that we connect the two ideas though?  What if pain is, at some level, necessary in order to experience pleasure?  How would we know real pleasure if we'd not experienced pain?  On the flip-side, don't we know pain only because we've known pleasure?

The concepts of pain and pleasure aren't battling each other, they actually work together for good...your good.

What if we take the quote from page 16 and replace pain with sacrifice?  How would that change your view of pleasure?  Should we expect pleasure without sacrifice?  Can you think back to a time when your sacrifice was rewarded?  Does it make it easier to endure when you believe that your sacrifice and struggle will be rewarded?