The Conflict Between Duty and Desire

Internal conflict is not unique to any one man. 

Often there is a work a man is proficient in and makes a living on. Then on any downtime, the man does what he loves, cooking, metalworking, art, engineering, farming, or martial arts. 

Name a thing a man could fall in love with doing, where the practice of said thing, the man loses track of himself, his past and future fade to the background completely, losing himself from the connection to time, sleep, and hunger.

Man is fully alive in the present practice of it, a state of intense concentration where doing and thinking flow without any delay in processing time. 

Being lost in the work is an outcome where all things outside of said practice do not just come second to the present practice but do not exist while intense practice is in action. 

The work, the man, is proficient in, which provides his living, maybe has small units of time where the same intense concentration and fullness is present, so the man is conflicted. Reasons says doing the work that pays your bills is commonsense. That type of logic is difficult to argue against because it is sound. 

Do good work that pays a man well. 

There is the other thing, the dream of being paid well for the work that puts a man in a state of being fully alive. That’s not a bad thing, either. 

The conflict isn’t destructive, necessarily, but sitting on the fence and not choosing which direction to move in is not a way to end the chaos of conflict. Now what…Cultivate the courage to make the choices that will force the most pain. 

Seek Knowledge & Grow Strong