Know Your Destination
Before you can choose an appropriate path for your life, you must know where you want to go. The Warrior-Poet has a clear understanding of where they want to arrive. They also have a clear understanding of what success really means and they are aware what type of destiny would bring fulfillment and meaning to their life. To start your journey, you need to get clear about what it is you are trying to attain and how you will know when you get there. You must be able to see your destination in your mind and as time goes on, this picture or idea must become clearer as you gain more knowledge along your chosen path.
Find Your Starting Point
It is not enough to know where you want to arrive. For successful navigation you must know two things, where you are going and where you are right now. This allows you to choose the most effective path that will take you successfully to your destination. As you learn more about why we consistently fail, you will gain a clearer understanding of this crucial point, but right now let me stress the importance of being highly self-aware and brutally honest about where you are presently along your path. Most people have a skewed perception of where their starting point is and they end up with a set of useless directions. Making friends with your current position is a crucial step and if neglected, can blindside even the hardest working and most talented people. For most, that means facing the fact that you are farther away from your destination than you want to admit. The good news is that once you determine your true starting point, then arriving at your destination not only becomes possible, but it also becomes probable.
Walking The Path
One of the secrets of the success of a Warrior-Poet is that once you determine an honest starting point and a meaningful destination, you will shift your focus away from those places and focus on attaining happiness and fulfillment in the present moment. You will learn to let go of the end goal and focus on perfecting your daily practice. It is those who master their daily practice that end up arriving safely and happily at their destination. Likewise, those who walk the path while focusing only on a distant point are going to trip over the obstacles right in front of them. A Warrior-Poet seeks to perfect their body, mind and spirit through daily practice and makes self-mastery the most important goal in their pursuit of success. To a Warrior-Poet, self-mastery is the goal, because once you attain self-mastery, then mastery of life comes naturally. Thus we say that the Way of the Warrior is to pursue life-mastery through self-mastery.
Bring Your Moral Compass
As you travel along your chosen path, you will face obstacles, adversities and have to make some difficult decisions. Many times you will travel through unknown territory and may lack the resources, tools or experience you need to make informed decisions. For this reason, a Warrior-Poet sets up a personal Code of Ethics which acts as a type of compass. This moral compass will help steer you away from trouble and keep you on the proper path when you do not have enough information or experience to make concrete decisions about your journey. I encourage all Warrior-Poets to set up some stringent rules that will dictate who you are, what you stand for, what you are willing to do and what you will never compromise. This compass will be an invaluable tool along your path and you should prepare it right away. A good start is to be more stringent than the rules set up for society and to be more disciplined than those around you. The quality of your journey will be directly affected by the level of self-discipline you develop and the stricter you are with yourself (within reason), the more trouble you will avoid along your way.
Methodology
Apart from maintaining a strict code of conduct, a Warrior-Poet also adheres to a basic strategy when exploring and learning lessons along their journey. The methodology of the Warrior-Poet is to always exercise Great Faith, Great Doubt and Great Determination. You must have Great Faith that there exists a true path that will lead you to your objectives in life. You must believe that your effort is going to result in the type of success that you seek. Great Doubt is an attribute that not many teachers advocate, but I challenge you to place great doubt in everything you learn. The Warrior-Poet does not accept things at face value, and they put the principles into practice and test them out to determine their effectiveness. A Warrior-Poet is confident in walking their path because they have tried and tested out the lessons they practice and live by. Lastly, you must exercise Great Determination in putting time and energy into your daily practice. You have to push yourself above and beyond the point where most people quit, and in doing so, you will find that you will reach higher and farther than most people.
The Way of the Warrior-Poet
There is a saying that, “the pen is mightier than the sword”. In feudal Japan, however, there was a concept developed known as Bunbu Ichi or Bunbu Ryodo. This idea states that the Way of Literature and the Way of the Warrior are one and the same path. It is a marrying of the mind and body, of art and science, of thinking and doing, and of spirituality and the mundane. Thus we say that the Way of the Warrior-Poet is “pen and sword in one accord”. This ancient principle led to the development of a more complete human being who both developed wisdom to guide their power and the power to protect their wisdom. The Warrior-Poet embraces both the physical and intellectual and aims to hone their body, mind and spirit in order to become a more effective human being.
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