What’s your fight?

Today, I’m confronted with thoughts of battlefields and fights. Here I stand. I’m looking down from atop the Colosseum in Rome. It’s breathtaking. And, it’s almost if you can see, hear, and smell the past when you’re here.

More than two thousand years there were men in the caves within the Colosseum—chained to walls and waiting for their chance to fight for freedom.

How different is our world today? Are we fighting for our freedom?

The Modern Fight For Freedom

Maybe your match isn’t a blood-thirsty animal. Maybe it’s not a barbarian with a battle ax. And, maybe you don’t have to wake up in the morning and face bloodshed.

But, we are still, in a matter of speaking, chained down and fighting for freedom. Our fight isn’t with other men and women who are trying to literally kill us. Our fight is of a different kind.

We’re chained to mortgages, bills, and 9-to-5 jobs. We’re fighting for freedom to live the life we want and deserve.

And yet, many of us don’t even realize it. We trudge on, feeling the strain of the battle. It feels like we’re being pulled apart, but on the inside. These things chaining us down, keeping us from our freedom, can slowly suck our very will from us.

But today needs to be the day we sound the battlecry and remind ourselves that we’re fighting for a life without these chains. So much goes with winning this battle. It’s not only a ripping off of the chains. It’s gaining the new perspective that goes along with freedom. It’s looking at the chains in the dust and realizing they do not define us. The will not weigh us down any longer.

You and I, we chose to not be defined by the things the world tells us we must be, the things we must have in order to be successful. You and I, we’re gladiators, and we fight the mindset that tells us to fall in line.

The Essentials

So, as you head out on your workday or weekend ask yourself these four questions. 

First, what are you going to do when you step out onto the battlefield today? You’re going to be faced with all sorts of choices. Will you engage, or will you fall behind front lines and let others fight. Courage on the battlefield does not mean you’re not afraid. On the contrary, courage requires fear. It’s there so that you and I can face it. Will you face it today, on the battlefield?

Second, what are your tools? Spend some time today and take some inventory. What skills, passions, resources do you possess that you can use on the battlefield today? Maybe it’s a skill or passion that you haven’t used in a while. You’ve let it become latent. Maybe it’s time to dust it off and put it to good use.

Next, what are your opportunities? You must first identify them. So, do it. What are they. Then, don’t turn away or avoid your opportunities. Seize them! Success is often the difference between merely identifying an opportunity, and seizing it. It’s not difficult to say, “Oh look, that’s a great opportunity.” We can all do that. What separates us on the battlefield is the man or woman who sees it, and runs away with it.

And finally, are you ready to act now? This is a simple answer. You either are, or you aren’t.

Now, go!

For more, follow me on Twitter