Why is it so hard?

Jewelry Discussion
41

This little might add some more insight on this significant subject.
Jerry

The War of Art:
Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
By Steven Pressfield

Price: $12.95

Media: Paperback
Manufacturer : Warner Books
Release data : 01 April, 2003

Review by Joe Tye @ www.amazon.com

  Know the enemy, know yourself, wrote Sun Tzu in his classic
  The Art of War, and your victory will be certain. For anyone
  who is stuck at a level below their God-given potential, who
  can't seem to get on track to do the things they need to do in
  order to achieve their most authentic goals, knowing the enemy
  and knowing yourself are one and the same. 

  Steve Pressfield's magnificent little book The War of Art is
  about being more creative - but more important, it's also about
  fulfilling your potential as a human being. To do this, he
  says, you must overcome Resistance (the "R" is capitalized be
  Pressfield to represent the fact that it is a very real entity
  - as real to your authentic Self as Charles Manson or Genghis
  Khan were to their victims). 

  The whole aim of Resistance, says Pressfield (who is the
  bestselling author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and Gates of
  Fire), is to prevent you from doing the work you are called to
  do. Resistance wants you to take it easy, to be ordinary and
  mediocre, to take the low road. Resistance is the reason so
  many people place a basket over the brilliant candle that
  shines within them. The fight against Resistance is, Pressfield
  says, a war to the death. 

  Pressfield disputes the standard motivational cliche that you
  can have, do, or be anything if you follow the right formula
  and just work hard enough. Rather, he says: "We are not born
  with unlimited choices... Our job in this lifetime is not to
  shape ourselves into some ideal that we imagine we ought to be,
  but to find out who we already are and become it." 

  There are two occasions when Resistance will be the most
  relentless, and they are related. The first is when something
  really matters to you. "Rule of thumb: The more important a
  call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance
  we will feel toward pursuing it." If your lifelong goal is to
  be a writer, a rejection letter from a publisher will hurt a
  whole lot more than if you submitted your manuscript on a dare.

  The second occasion that Resistance is most dangerous is
  related to what Pressfield calls "the mother of all fears,"
  namely the fear that you will actually succeed. Resistance
  builds as you get closer to the finish line. "At this point,
  Resistance knows we're about to beat it. It hits the panic
  button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with
  everything it's got." There is a real paradox here: the closer
  you get to reaching that proverbial tipping point, where things
  are really starting to click, the more likely you are to engage
  in the self-sabotaging behavior that is the calling card of
  Resistance. 

  Pressfield offers a prescription for defeating Resistance. You
  must, he says, become "a pro." But he does not mean that in the
  sense of earning a living at the work, in the sense of being a
  member of a certain profession, or in the sense of being looked
  up to by your peers. Rather, he simply means showing up every
  day with your lunch pail and getting to work. Much of the book
  has to do with how you make this transformation so that you can
  do the work that you are called to do. 

  I have made a small poster with this quote from Steve's book
  and placed it prominently above my computer: "There never was a
  moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to
  alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on
  Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work." My
  own next book has been on the back-burner for far too long,
  victim to Resistance. But now I have a weapon: Every time
  Resistance stands between me and doing my work, I pull Steve's
  book from out of my bookshelf and beat Resistance over the
  head. Then in that very second, I sit down and do my work. And
  it's working.
42 
... You somehow believe that YOU have the right to choose FOR OTHER
PEOPLE ....

Interesting interpretation. It has nothing to do with what I’ve said
or actually believe but hey, that’s part of what makes life so
interesting: the unexpected.

I think if you really want to shop ... in the U.S. to find the
HIGHER PRICED goods that meet your "quality" preference you will
ALWAYS be able to find them.

Been there, done that. I was living and working in a major US city at
a time when I was earning the highest wage I’ve ever earned in my
life and I spared myself few luxuries, more or less. However, what
I’ve said I still believe: the overall quality of stuff in Europe is
higher and often the selection of those quality goods is broader,
especially in the mid to higher quality brackets. You obviously feel
that this is either false or impossible and that’s your business. :wink:
I see it pretty much every time I go shopping so that’s my reality.
C’est la vie.

... You believe somehow control should be kept from them ....

On the contrary, I think that they might want to exercise a little
self control which, I believe, is what I’ve been repeating
throughout this discussion.

We certainly agree on this: buyer’s should make their own choices
etc etc. Simply stated nothing else will do. However, the point I’ve
been trying to make is that it is not money in the pocket that makes a
consumer wise or meritorious, it is what is in their head that might
make them so. Simply because they have money to spend does not make
them wise spenders.

It seems as obvious to me as the day is long that if most consumers
want cheapo goods that’s what they’ll get, in overwhelming abundance.
And I would think that it is equally obvious that the producers of the
other goods will change, quit, or leave. At some point said consumer
may find that this has brought them to a place that isn’t so great
after all: they’ve effectively bargain-hunted themselves into a
dollar-store marketplace.

... those who wish to move "up" in "quality" will ALWAYS be able to
do so in the U.S.

Yes, I more or less agree, but I’m saying their selection will often
be somewhat limited as compared to other marketplaces where people
are not unaccustomed to paying more for quality goods, ie Europe, and
thereby fueling that part of their economy. We’re not talking
absolutes here, we’re talking relative comparisons. To simply state
that you can “move up” says nothing about what you’ll find when you
get there. The shelves may be comparatively bare because in the
time it took you to “move up” the producers and suppliers who would
otherwise have stocked those shelves have disappeared. Because of the
pressures the bulk of consumers have applied through their spending
habits many of those producers will have either re-tooled to supply
cheaper goods or left the market.

I’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating: the American economy is
a wonder to behold and I am often very thankful that it is there to
satisfy my needs and desires when circumstances do not allow me to
satisfy those needs locally. However, that marketplace is not without
it’s own particular characteristics, as compared to other
marketplaces, and sometimes those characteristics are …
under-whelming. Contrary to popular belief the American marketplace
is not without it’s comparatively bare shelves here and there. To
simply repeat that this cannot be so is to wander with intent from
the path of enlightenment.

And Wal-Mart and other U.S. big box stores are rapidly expanding
into Europe ....

Yes, I’ve seen them. People here worry about them having the same
effect here as they have in the US but that’s an overall concern, it
applies to many US influences on the European economy. Some local
producers and “small box” shops are disappearing because of the “big
box” places but the process appears to be moving much slower here. I
suspect it’s something like the McDonald’s story: it exists but in a
much smaller proportion than in the US because a smaller proportion
of the people are interested in that kind of product, which has been
my point all along.

Nice wall, BTW.

Thank you.

Cheers,
Trevor F.