General George S. Patton, Jr., in his 1926 essay, “The Secret of Victory,” wrote, “The secret of victory lies not wholly in knowledge. It lurks invisible in that vitalizing spark, intangible, yet as evident as the lightning — the warrior soul. The fixed determination to acquire the warrior soul, and having acquired it to either conquer or perish with honor, is the secret of victory.”
I think one of the most instructive movies about fighting and victory are Rocky I and Rocky II
I think boxing is a stupid sport. But Rocky impart an important lesson: that in order to win, you have to have the hunger to win, to want it more badly than anything else. And if you don't have it, you'll get your head beat in. Or worse.
If you don't have that hunger, you're not going to do what it takes. You're going to make token efforts, half-assed attempts. And you'll lose and accept losing.
We need the Eye of the Tiger, the hunger that drives a person to do whatever it takes to win, that does not contemplate failure as an option.
Part of that drive is the willingness to devote one's life to the cause. Not one's spare time. One's life.
Part of the reason why we have trouble making inroads has to do with the lack of manpower which reflects a lack of willpower. If you only make token efforts, you will get token results.
How serious are we in winning this fight?
If we want to win, we have to do what it takes to win. And that means devoting ourselves completely to the fight.
It's daunting. When you're an activist, a lot of what you do is behind the scenes. Like a boxer, you "train" for the big day, the big fight the day of reckoning, or in our case, the vote in Parliament or the day in Court. You don't know if all that pain and sweat will be worth it behind the scenes.
You have to make it worth it. Self-doubt undermines your effort. You must simply do what must be done to assure a victory. You don't look back. You don't think what-if-- you simply work to be the absolute best in order to defeat your opposition, letting your hunger for victory drive you on.
That's the Eye of the Tiger.
