Translated from the Hebrew by DeAnna L’am
A Hebrew proverb states: “Nothing stand in the way of the will!” Is this really so? Is our will the engine behind our life? And if so, how much strength does it have?
Since our will power is the basic energy in any path we choose, it will determine how far we go.
When life is filled with problems, shortcomings, and troubles - can your willpower, in and of itself, leverage a way out?
I believe, as long as a person demands progress of one’s self, one’s environment, or the entire world there is a chance of arriving, ever closer, to one’s goal.
Even if one asks for serenity or happiness, there is a need for consciously and openly wanting it, regardless of how far the goal may seem.
Why is it often so difficult to will the reality we want to live?
We find it hard, as human beings, to believe in ourselves, or our greatest assets. As Nelson Mandela said, we fear the light within us much more than we fear darkness.
Inner Will
Will power carries tremendous potential, perhaps the greatest potential, for creating the reality we want to live.
Sometimes we find it hard to will. We may have willed so many things that didn’t come to pass, that we may have given up on ‘willing’ altogether. We stop believing in willing, because we conclude that it doesn’t work for us.
When we find that something doesn’t work, we need to examine it from various angles a giving up will only ensure our failure.
An in-depth examination of our will reveals that any external will stems from an internal one. The job of the outer will is to serve the inner one. For instance: The wish for finding a partner may derive from a deeper wish to get married and start a family, which stems from the wish for love and the continuity of life. Therefore, every wish serves a previous one, which created it. It is as if our outer wishes are the means by which our inner will is actualized.
Going Deeper
Our deepest wishes don’t change often, perhaps never. They accompany us for life. The outer wishes, on the other hand, change rapidly. For example: we want to eat and drink different things daily, but the will to nourish our body, and preserve our health and vitality, stays mainly identical from one day to the next.
We often find ourselves confused and frustrated amidst external wishes, while the key lies within a consciousness of the deeper will that created them. Going inward we may find a common denominator, which could provide a relatively easy solution.
Humanity’s Deepest Wish
Regardless of where we live, or how we wish to actualize ourselves, we must never give up one wish common to most human being: the wish for happiness. If happiness sounds out of your reach, then it may just be enough to have peace in your life and at the least, no unnecessary stress.
Strengthening Our Will
When we experience, at any given moment, an inability to flow with our life or to release ourselves from a perceived trap, we must aspire to wake up our will to move towards our goal.
The slightest act will create a motion forward. If we lack the energy for even the smallest of actions, we could think positively about our circumstances, and about the possibilities for raising our energy or our mood.
A positive thought is an act which, as long as we stay connected to it, will move us forward, and activate our vitality.
“Perseverance makes the impossible possible, the possible probable, and the probable eternal” Robert Huff
Another factor that can be extremely helpful in cases of low or diminishing will is helping others. When we help others we enlist our inner strength, and thus our will. This is the magic of existence. If it’s hard to take a step forward on behalf of ourselves, or think a positive thought toward our own future, we may well get stronger and advance while doing so for others.
Wanting to want
Will power is crucially important, since without it we may stand in one place for years, and lose the flavor of life.
It is advisable to invest time, daily, in strengthening our will. Stopping at a fixed time to observe the correlation between our actions and our will, especially our inner wishes, is important.
As is asking ourselves: Do I truly act toward actualizing my inner will? Can I fulfill deeper wishes? Can I act differently to serve my inner will?