What Prevents “success"

George Patton famously said that

“Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.”

It’s often when we hit a pain point that we change and be determined to: achieve an objective.

Again, the achievement of an objective is the definition of success.

So what prevents us from attaining this success?

Wayne Rogers says

The only thing that prevents us from success is ourselves. Our political, religious, and ideological concepts are in constant conflict.

We often have conflicting desires. We’re human, and we’re animals by nature. We have base animal desires: to mate, to eat, to drink.

Our political standing also determines our ethics, how we act in the world, and how we achieve our goals. We support politicians who are good for ourselves.

We have religion and religious teaching which often acts as a 'psychological script' for our ethics and morality.

In Ateneo college, there’s a class called Theology of Morality. This class never really resolved a conflict in church teaching and actual college debauchery practice: is pre-marital sex really a sin? But it did ask us to study and question the teachings of the Church.

Ex: if the Pope suddenly wants to make abortion legal, shouldn’t we question that based on what we know is right?

What’s the actionable insight then here to help us with this tendency?

• Clarify your goals, and write down the potential conflicts.
• Think these through and seek thoughtful disagreement.

Image source: Lifehack