EXCUSES AND THE MANTRA | 2007-11-16
I keep getting comments that amount to, "I'm too smart for the Mantra" or "I've got my own agenda."
Basic training is as boring for me as it is for a D.I. To the extent that YOU get discipline, I do not HAVE to keep pounding in the basics. Everybody who does not get the basics thinks he's too smart for them. Which makes more work for me.
BORING work.
Two other commenters said, respectively, that people keep finding exceptions to the mantra and the mantra is too much at once. Who do you think you're fooling? It reminds of students who would use the old excuses I used for not giving the right answers or not showing up. I had to explain I had not only hears those excuses, I'd USED them.
The three excuses for failing to have the discipline to use the mantra are transparent, not only to me but to Dave and everybody else her who is serious. Those of us who are in ACTION have no trouble with the "too much at once" or the "exceptions" crap. It's odd that no one but those with the respective excuses ever run into these problems.
The three excuses cited above cover two simple human motivations: 1) You don't want to appear average, so you want to make your own argument and look smart, regardless of the effect on the larger struggle, and 2) you have your own agenda.
I don't mind people breaking a discipline I have no right to impose. I do, however, object to people lying to themselves and to us. We all do that. We all do that all the time. But like other human failings, it should be minimized despite the fact you can never get rid of it. I am not sure I would want to the kind of robot that couldn't lie to himself or want to deal with such.
But these ARE delusions and excuses. An old warrior can hear those coming out of himself.