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“Character is destiny.” ~Heraclitus
Character is forged in the crucible of adversity. Struggle is mere kindling. Those with great character have the courage to bask.
1.) Brutal self-honesty:
“It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.” ~Seneca
To be unconquerable by anything, you must be willing to lose everything.
This means surrendering to Cosmos, bowing at the feet of infinity, and honoring the unwritten law of the interconnected universe over the written law of disconnected man.
True wholeness demands brutal acceptance of your fractured nature. There is never a state in which you are not broken. In fact, you are never-not-broken. Your heart will always be going through the motions of breaking and healing. You will always be in a state of repair.
Becoming whole requires brutal self-honesty. It takes looking into the mirror and accepting everything—the good, the bad, and the ugly. It takes embracing brokenness as a crucial aspect of wholeness. It takes digging down deep inside and admitting some terrible truths about yourself. It takes honoring your most dishonorable moments and giving up all hope for a better past.
2.) Soul-centric Humility:
“A mistake that makes you humble is better than an achievement that makes you arrogant.” ~Unknown
In an egocentric world that’s dead set on owning everything, a soul-centric perspective is a breath of fresh air.
Keep humility ahead of hubris. The ego has blinders on. The soul sees how everything is connected to everything else. Put your ego in the back seat. Strap it down. Let your soul take the wheel. It’s a mighty compass. Use it to guide you into a new way of being human in the world.
Set your teeth firmly into the pulp of experiencing the world as a fallible, imperfect, and gravely mistaken creature. You’re only human. Dig your humanness out of the muck and mire of your unreasonable expectations. Transcend seriousness.
3.) Fierce authenticity:
“In a world full of toxic positivity be authentic chaos.” ~Koko
Go full-frontal boss mode on what makes you come alive. There is nothing more authentic than doing what you love with gusto and aplomb. Be fierce. Be ruthless. Be love! Being love is falling in love with the human experience. It’s going all in. It’s going all the way.
Authenticity is sharpened mettle. It’s taking what makes you come alive and using the whetstone of experience to hone it into a sword of truth that clears all paths. The way becomes clear: the only way is to keep the way clear for the Truth Quest to unfold.
4.) Curious creativity:
“If you are not living in awe, you are not paying attention.” ~Rumi
Keep curiosity ahead of certainty. In a constantly changing universe, the only thing you can be certain of is that certainty is folly. Stay ahead of the curve by engaging the curve with curiosity.
Being curious rather than convinced will keep you flexible and adaptable. It will make you more open-minded in your search, more awestruck on your journey, more compassionate in dealing with others, and more capable of avoiding dogmatism, extremism, and xenophobia.
Most of all it will make you more creative, more imaginative, and more interested in carving good character out of what you can control while letting what you cannot control truly slide.
Your most essential humanness is buried inside you. Self-conquest is foremost a digging up of your humanness and then sculpting a healthy, beautiful, unconquerable character out of the base material.
5.) Undaunted perseverance:
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” ~Marcus Aurelius
Perseverance is the master that will guide you out of the abyss of low character. Through perseverance you will gain mastery and robustness despite naivete, ignorance, or fragility. It is the ability to embrace “the suck” of the climb. The ladder to unconquerable character is built on the rungs of discomfort and pain. Each step is a herculean hurdle, but worth it.
Perseverance is simply pulling yourself toward your future self. Grip firm. Brain a sponge. Heart a womb. Soul on fire. You pull yourself along the rope of self-improvement, through brambles and thorns, darkness and deserts, splinters and rebirth.
There is discomfort in working out your muscles. There is discomfort in challenging your fragility. But it’s all worth it when your muscles become strong, and your fragility becomes antifragility despite discomfort.
6.) Strategic courage:
“Being unconquerable lies with yourself.” ~Sun Tzu
It is your responsibility alone to recondition your cultural conditioning. Be strategic about it. Flip all hand-me-down scripts. Push all taken-for-granted envelopes. Challenge all ideological indoctrinations. Turn the tables on all dogmatic delusions. Think outside the box of the chain of obedience that keeps the profoundly sick society propped up.
Be the hero of your own story. Become a force of nature (cosmos/universe/infinity) first, a person second. Be unafraid, undeterred, undaunted. Be fierce. Become the tip of the spear, the cut of the Sword of Truth, the sharpened edge of the Golden Ratio.
You are a mighty pivot. You are the point of view on whom the universe hinges. You are the existential crossroads. You are the universe perceiving itself. It’s all on your shoulders. The time is now to be responsible with your power.
7.) Radical humor:
“If you can laugh in the face of adversity, you're bulletproof.” ~Ricky Gervais
Keep the will to humor ahead of the will to power. Practice humor over hubris. Hang a question mark on all the things you’ve taken too seriously. Set a tripwire for your pride. Dangle a noose over your petty expectations. Take everything with a grain of salt and some things with the entire saltshaker. Have a laugh at the cosmic joke.
The key is to remain self-empowered but not so empowered that you become egocentric and overly serious. A good sense of humor will keep you sharp, playful, and lighthearted. It will keep you ahead of the curve by restraining the hubris and certainty that leads to blind faith.
Best of all, having a good sense of humor will get you through just about anything. And even if it doesn’t, at least you’ll be able to have a laugh about it. Talk about being unconquerable. There is nothing more powerful than a good sense of humor despite the trials and tribulations of life.
May your character forever be sharpened by the whetstone of your humor.
Image source:
Sobriety Day 18 by Anthony Hurd
About the Author:
Gary Z McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide-awake view of the modern world.
This article (7 Qualities of Unconquerable Character) was originally created and published by Self-inflicted Philosophy and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary Z McGee and self-inflictedphilosophy.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.