A treatise on strength: part 1

This is the first part of my four-part series on strength.

What we normally pictures when we hear the word “strength”? Of all views of “force” is different. This is great muscle men, throwing around weights? Your favourite athlete? A jack of lumber? Hulk? Or is the face of a mother who raised a family on her own? Or a victim of cancer that may enter treatment with a smile and hope?

Personally, I think there are two aspects of the strength:

Physical strength:

“.. .is the ability of a person or animal to exert force on physical objects.”(1)

Mental strength:

“… is the natural psychological edge or developed that lets you get: generally, do better than your opponents with many requests (competition, training, lifestyle) that sport has a performer; in particular, be more consistent and better opponents remaining determined, focused, confident and pressure control.(2)

Although this quote defines mental strength in sports by setting is valid for any circumstance, as it should withstand any life throws at you, just like the sport.

Because this breed? Well it was my passion for awhile now, although I did not know. For a long time are not aware of what I was looking for when I was chasing the martial arts or put myself through discomfort just to see how they turned out. I thought that I didn’t want to be weak, or wanted to be prepared for anything. But over the years I have broke down and down and down and down and maybe continue to whittle away at it, but what I finally came away with is the idea of “strength”: being able to endure, to move, to remain firm and weather all storms, fear not, to protect, to survive and grow old with a straight back and my wits about me. Certainly I haven’t achieved my goal. I’m just saying that I understood what it is.

No matter that the common perception, there will always be a place in this world for the strong; even if you’re not stressed in this age as it was in the past. Force in society today is no longer a prerequisite or even a priority. If you are no longer able to hold its own weight you can get a scooter. If you manage to open the pickle jar you can get a home machine that can do it for you. If you cannot do so through an education or get get the job there are systems in place to make it possible to get free money. I’m not picking on anyone or saying that these things are good or bad. I’m just saying.

In the past, none of these situations would be a problem. If you can’t keep your weight, you die. If you don’t get your food, you die. If you do not work for the food, you die. Quite simple. Our ancestors needed an impressive amount of strength to survive, and everyone has the genetic material to be so strong. The only difference is: need vs. desires. They’ll dig in.

In this series, I’m going to go into two main aspects of what I refer to as “strength”: physical and mental. I want to share my thoughts on what they are, because they are important and how we can build on them. And I say “build on them” because everyone has a degree of force, the key is to never be happy with him and to fight more and more.

For now I’m going to leave to contemplate. Let me know what you think. What do you think is?