empowering

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." 

—Sun-Tzu, The Art of War

If you know yourself then you know your enemy.

If you want to know who you are up against, look in the mirror before you point the finger. While some people do things you don't like, it is also possible that we are often our own worst enemy. Who has more say about the way things are going to be in your life than you?

When you look in the mirror and see that you are in control of all the important decisions in your life, you see that the forces that you must overcome to work towards positive goals are mostly internal.

“When the fight begins within himself, a man’s worth something.”

—Robert Browning, Bishop Blougram’s Apology, 1855

Sometimes we concentrate on the idea of external enemies to such an extent that we make ourselves powerless victims defined by what they are doing to us instead of what we can do not just about "it" but about everything.

Fighting back is just one direction we could choose to go in. Sometimes the alternative is to observe what someone is doing and go do something else. As long as what you are doing is constrained by reacting to your enemy, you are controlled by them. As soon as you focus on your own opportunities for constructive action, you are overcoming the apathy within all of us that so-called enemies prey upon.

Inner Peace 

Finding inner peace means going beyond captivity and struggle. Being enslaved to our own negativity and fighting an inner war for self mastery are both painful states of mind. There is another way.

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make them my friends?"

—Abraham Lincoln 

When first we recognize our mental slavery, we want freedom. When first we try to think freely, we feel like we are at war with a negative part of ourself. But gradually, the struggle subsides and we find it easy and natural to live consciously. Discipline is replaced by habit, and whenever we slip back into negative ways of thinking, we return to consciousness with laughter instead of frustration.

When you find inner peace with your own thoughts and actions, you become a force to be reckoned with instead of a house divided against itself.

"The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems."

—Gandhi

Leave no trace is a philosophy of cleaning up after yourself that applies just as much to Burning Man camp sites as it does to undercover reporting: Make no mess for others to find.