You Gotta Conquer Yourself Before You Conquer The World

 

I guess it goes without saying that in today’s world it’s substantially preferable and prudent to conquer yourself rather than trying to conquer your peers, friends, family, society, or the world—for reasons we all know and understand.

But even after explicitly knowing this, we still act the way we have always been. We still blame our boss for not being able to grow in the company, we blame our colleagues for backstabbing us, we blame our parents for our shortcomings, we blame our partner for our emotional outburst. And some people go one step ahead and blame the entire universe, God, destiny, the fate for all the wrong things happening in their lives.

What this actually signifies is that we are still lacking somewhere or the other in exalting our intelligence and are letting our minds seamlessly function in autopilot—according to all the old beliefs and set patterns, which is getting the better of us.

In the article, how to control your mind, I have talked in depth about these two aspects: mind and intelligence. But the thing here to understand is that these are not two entirely separate physical entities. They are ultimately two separate functions of our cute little brain. The brain is what you can touch, flesh out, and blow off, literally.

You can’t touch or feel your mind or intelligence. The mind is what you can call a storehouse of impulses, feelings, emotions, thoughts, and memories. Intelligence is knowing all about which of those impulses, feelings, emotions, thoughts, and memories are good or bad for you and acting accordingly.

 

Coalesce Your Mind and Intelligence to Conquer Yourself

Now the problem arises when we know for certain that so and so feelings and impulses are bad for us, but still, we succumb to it and act on it nevertheless. Then another problem is when you start doing something you know is good for you, but after some time all the enthusiasm and energy go down the drain. You start going to a gym but after a month or so, you simply “don’t feel like doing it.” Both of these scenarios are major issues that you need to tackle if you want to conquer yourself.

The simple trick to handle these situations is to choose such permutations and combinations of activities where both your intelligence and mind(desire) converge. That’s the only long-term solution that you should aim for.

If you find gymming boring after a certain period of time, maybe try something else like dancing or aerobics or boxing, whatever. Don’t just simply quit and get stuck at a certain point. 

When your mind and intelligence agree on something or are on the same page, then all the conflicts come to an end, and you essentially enter the state of ‘flow’. This conflict is the crux of the problem. 

“I feel something so right doing the wrong thing, and I feel something so wrong doing the right thing.” Well, in order to finally start counting stars, you gotta keep on exploring options until you find that thing where you can finally say “I feel something so right doing the right thing.” And once you do find it, you gotta dive into it full throttle and do the task wholeheartedly. But, sorry to break it to you, most of the time even this is not enough and eventually we lose interest and hop on to something else.

Whenever you encounter situations in life where you have a natural inclination to do them and even your intelligence says that it is the right thing to do, then you need to cling to that no matter what. So, the question is how to cling on to such things, because it’s ultimately not gonna cling itself.

 

Clinging Onto Things is Not Always Creepy

In order to maintain that excitement, exuberance, and interest about that particular thing, go to the bottom of it—carve out every bit of information you can about that particular chore, and understand the thing inside out. This is what we don’t do.

Let’s say you read something on my blog or anywhere else that intrigued you and you suddenly had an urge or sensation to know more about it and you also know that it is ultimately gonna be good for you, then don’t procrastinate. Start then and there, collecting information on that particular topic from whatever resources you can get your hand on and get the ball rolling. The moment you stumble upon such intuitions, then don’t put it to tomorrow, act today—that’s when you will actually change your life, for good.   

But if you again put it to tomorrow, like we generally do, nothing’s gonna change and you will go back to your normal life. We gotta start paying some serious focus and attention towards things that are important, and not just urgent. The minute we change our dynamics of making decisions and shift our locus of the center from the urgent towards the ‘important’ stuff, well then, wonderful things will start happening.

You don’t have to dwell yourself in what the celebrities are up to, the movies that are going to be released on Netflix, the political parties’ next action plan. This is all your mind’s futile cravings which we all know doesn’t really hold any long-term value for us. Instead, dwell on things that do matter, things about you—your body, mind, and soul.

Whenever you come across something that you feel is gonna be good for you, immediately pull out the big guns. Bombard yourself with information related to it, draw a perimeter around yourself with just the specifics of that particular thing, and take actions at whatever scale seems feasible and doable, as soon as possible. 

 

Don’t Wait till Tomorrow 

Suddenly feel like working on your health? Don’t waste another second and sign up for the nearest gym membership online, order some books on diet and nutrition, read articles or blogs about fitness, watch videos and interviews of your favorite fitness guru, call up your health-conscious friend you used to make fun of. That’s how you will ultimately conquer yourself, by initiating and taking the action at this very second instead of waiting for something magical to happen tomorrow.

The night I had the idea of starting a blog(thanks to my mom), on 12th July 2020, I immediately took a pen and a paper and started jotting down some potential names for the site. “Infinitians” was the third choice with which I settled and ultimately ended up buying the domain on that particular night itself.

Started writing the very next morning, and never looked back ever since. Had I not acted then and there, the very moment this idea struck me, I simply would have put it all to tomorrow and probably would have forgotten the whole thing. But I got pretty excited with it and was well aware at the time that if I don’t do something about it right now, I would perhaps never do it in the future.

You see, all it takes is one single push to sit back and see the snowball effect in motion. Don’t put that ‘one push’ to the next moment. Because if you are not taking the plunge today, what makes you think you are gonna take it tomorrow?

This one simple choice of acting at the very moment you conceived the thought, exponentially increases the odds of you actually changing your life, for good, and ultimately being able to conquer yourself. And just so we are on the same page, the ‘thought’ here involves anything that’s right for your body, mind, soul, career, or relationships. Whenever you feel even a teensy tiny bit of inspiration to do some good in these arenas take massive actions. Don’t hold back.

 

Success And Happiness

In order to grow and bring things to fruition in the materialistic world, you need to learn things from people who are already successful in their respective fields. It’s actually a no-brainer and yet so often we fall prey to advise and feedback from people who don’t even know a single damn thing about the industry you work in.

Similarly, if you wanna grow internally, you gotta be honest with yourself and take responsibility. This is not something where you can expect someone else to make you strong from the inside. Only you can take the responsibility to conquer yourself in this game of life.

There must be people in your friend’s circle or your family members who might be financially pretty successful but are not at ease internally, have a restless mind, and are still unhappy with their lives. So, as it is quite evident that these are actually two separate universes, where being successful in one universe doesn’t guarantee success in the other and vice versa. People are of the opinion that whenever they achieve their ‘goal’, they will become happy and their life will be set, which is naive.

No matter how strong and successful you become from the outside until you settle things on the inside, you will not be at ease. And the sad part is that no one really taught us how to conquer ourselves from the inside. Schools and colleges taught us how to acquire such and such skills to make money in the materialistic world, but nobody taught us how to manage our emotions, desires, memories, thoughts, and other substantial commodities.   

Now the thing here to understand that’s very substantial is that in order to know how your mind works, who you really are, all the spirituality stuff, one needs to be financially self-sufficient. One can’t possibly focus on stuff like this if he has a financial sword hanging on his neck, ready to tear him apart. You gotta be strong and confident enough that you don’t have to worry about it. That’s the first step to conquer yourself.

I don’t imply that you have to be necessarily a Bill Gates or something. One is considered to be successful in the material world, if he can provide for his family adequately and meet his needs, is not afraid to get fired from his job because he knows that he is talented enough to land himself another one in case he does get fired, is confident enough to build his business from the ground up again in case his current business goes bankrupt.

You see, even if you have a well-paying job or your business is booming currently, but you are scared shitless in case the worst happens, then you can’t be considered financially independent. And consequently, you won’t be able to shift your focus towards the more important stuff in life, because you will always be preoccupied with money.

 

Survival of the Fittest

Charles Darwin’s world-famous theory of Survival of the Fittest is more relevant today than ever, be it in a jungle or in a city. Anyone who tries to bypass this at any stage or phase, won’t be able to stick around for long and will get smacked right on the face.

You gotta make yourself fit in each and every arena of life if you wanna survive in this world. The more you work on making yourself fit, to the best of your abilities, the more chances you have of thriving. One doesn’t necessarily need to be the fittest one in the eyes of the world, because you will always find someone or the other better than you.

You just need to be as fit as you can—in fact ‘as fit as required’ instead of ‘as fit as you want’ because your ‘want’ is never gonna come to a full stop—and not run blindly in a never-ending race of becoming the fittest in the world, that’s a trap in itself you might wanna avoid. The word I would like to emphasize from the above paragraph is ‘required’. Required for what now? Peace of Mind, in order to conquer yourself. 

You need to be as fit as required to attain peace of mind to finally be able to grasp the ultimate truth about yourself, the universe, and everything else. And moreover one needs to understand the importance of understanding this gospel truth. But what does it mean to know this ‘truth’?

 

The Truth About Your Real Self

It means that even if, hypothetically, you become the fittest person on the earth, you still have no guarantees about life. Life is so fragile, volatile, and unpredictable that you will never be able to hold all the cards controlling your life. 

This is why it’s all the more important to understand the gravity of the truth because once you get it, you will rise above all the pettiness and trivialities that are eating people alive. All the concerns of a human are related to his body—it includes the physical body along with the mind, emotions, and feelings. Knowing the truth involves comprehending the fact that you are not this body. This is the only way to conquer yourself totally, once and for all at the highest possible stage.

Until you have even an iota of a doubt about this, you will keep on acting the same way you always have been. You don’t have to simply start believing in it just because you read it here or from someone else, you have to know it for a fact, at an experiential level. Don’t worry, it’s actually not that hard to fathom “Who you really are?” If anyone wants to do it, he actually can do it pretty easily.

He has to make himself fit—physically, mentally, emotionally—and achieve the state of perfection in whatever work you are doing to be independent because until you stand on your own legs, you will always be controlled by someone else.

You have to be powerful, not to rule or dominate the world, but so that the world can’t overpower you. You have to be strong, not to tyrannize the world, but so that the world can’t bully you into doing something you don’t want to. Easy so far?

One shouldn’t let a single moment pass by in vain. You gotta have a desire, a goal, a reason, a purpose in life. That’s the secret of everlasting energy. People who are lazy and distracted in life are those who lack a purpose. They won’t be able to sustain their energy for long.

Final Thoughts

So, to kinda sum it all up, if you want to conquer yourself you need to understand who you really are. And in order to devote yourself to your own self, you need to be powerful and energetic by becoming the best version of yourself. But you don’t have to exploit others or cheat or betray others. You should use that energy and power you generated by working on your own self for the welfare of the people. 

And once you achieve something in the materialistic world or become something, then you have to use the same energy and peace of mind you attained, on the study of yourself or what I referred to as ‘the greater truth’.

By doing this and sincerely and passionately walking down this path of self-knowledge, you will become Life itself. Now, which is better, to become something in life, or to become life itself? Everybody loves the ‘life’ inside the body, instead of the body. So imagine if you could somehow become that lifeline itself. Everybody will fall in love with you, and you will fall in love with everybody. And that’s how, ladies and gentlemen, you can conquer the whole universe, by conquering yourself first.

 

 

 

 

If you want to conquer yourself, you have to know the truth about yourself.