When life laughs at you, laugh back. When life asks you to do something, do it with gusto! When life presents a challenge step out with determination, find your bearings, and give it your all. Life asks much of you, for that is life’s job, to take you on your journey, to mold you into a being worthy of its challenges. And your challenge is to take the journey presented, to walk the path before you fully participatory, consciously, and with awareness of the ultimate goal: to ascend beyond what life has to offer. For life itself can only offer so much. It gives you the framework for the journey of spirit, but it does not take the journey, only you can do that.

Life offers advice in its everyday unfolding, but only you can decide what to do with what you are presented with. Life may be filled with things that must be attended to, but on the other hand, life has little to offer, for the real work and the real path are inside each of you. Life points out the direction, but only you can choose to go there.

Give life every opportunity to guide you, but be your own guide along your own path of choice. That is what it means to utilize every opportunity and strike out on a path of meaning and heart, on the path your spirit knows is the right one.

Life requests participation in so many ways, drawing here and there, requesting that this be attended to and that. But who says that life must be rewarded, that life itself requires an answer?

A warrior looks at life with a keen eye, with attention to detail, aware that life will entice but also aware that not all requests from life are valid or worthy of attention. And so a warrior is always alert to the ebb and flow of life’s requests while simultaneously decisive in what to get involved in, knowing full well how and where and why energy should be used or not.

A warrior’s main concern is always with energy, the personal amassing of it, and so a warrior is always intent that life will be a participant in the warrior’s journey rather than the other way around.

A warrior always studies needs, wants, and desires. What is really necessary and why? Meanwhile, a warrior knows that the ultimate goal in life is to gain enough insight and energy so as to be able to move on, to become enlightened in such way so as to not only transcend this world but to engage it in such a way as to bring forth its gifts. And so a warrior is both a student and a teacher, an apprentice of life while simultaneously garnering the energy and wisdom of a master.

These two sides of self are kept in balance at all times as the warrior travels through life eager to learn and equally eager to be an example of how to live with intent focused on the merger of these two aspects. And so a warrior is both gentle and fierce, both humble and sharply aware of each step taken on the chosen path of heart, always aware of how to learn and how to teach, by example. A warrior never ceases being curious and available for life’s adventures.

Occupy the mind with good ideas, thoughts, and positive mantras to obliterate the old negative self. Work toward a new self involves destruction of the old, metaphorically but sometimes literally as well, as in getting rid of and breaking through old structures that stand in the way. If change is desired then change must be instituted or no change will happen.

A warrior is always on the path of change, active and proactive, taking charge, taking action, awake, alert and moving always in a direction of newness. A warrior knows that change begins in the mind and so each morning upon waking a warrior’s first action is to sweep clean the mind, to begin with empty mind, and to be certain that only positive thoughts, ideas, and truths enter it. Thus a warrior really does start each day fresh and anew.

With positive mind, a warrior is prepared to take on the challenges to be encountered, whatever they may be, even negative thoughts, without slipping back into old patterns of defeat. A warrior does not get overpowered but always enters the unfolding mystery of life with awe. A warrior always walks a path of heart with focus, determination, and wonder.

The warrior’s way is always in alignment with nature, for the warrior is always aware of nature’s power, intelligence, and guidance. And so a warrior is never alone but knowingly accompanied through life by forces beyond reason. Reason, a warrior knows, is limited by its belief that it has the answer to everything, but a warrior knows that reason is also a worthy player in the larger game of life and so a warrior balances between nature and reason. A warrior learns to relax, to flow with life, to look for guidance from both sides.

A warrior makes decisions based on the balance of self within the wholeness of nature. To ease through the turmoils of life a warrior lets go to the natural ways of a life of action within the confines of life in this world of reason. Yet a warrior is always focused on what is to come, where reason has no foothold and only the dictates of nature will be of aid. And so a warrior is always open and aware of everything, reasonably so of course!