I heard this about a month ago uttered multiple times by friends:
Pain is inevitable, Suffering is optional.
I feel that this is quoted somewhere but that doesn’t subtract from its validity. You always have a choice. You always can say no. You can always say yes.
I’ve always hated and basked on the feeling of helplessness . It’s the perfect excuse for failure. It’s never your fault, It’s always because of other people, external circumstances that you did or did not expect.
I call BS on this. For that little slice of the universe we call our life, WE ARE NEVER HELPLESS. We fear ourselves. we fear failure. we fear success.
I bask in failure I bask in success. For they are the same. It is I that is unique. It is you that is unique. Shit Happens. Stuff Happens. Live. Love!
A useless sacrifice, you may say; but while the men who saw them die can tell such a story round the camp fire the example of such deaths as these does more than clang of bugle or roll of drum to stir the warrior spirit of our race. [emphasis added]
At no point during this particular engagement could anyone with a modicum of rationality have believed that this was a good idea. Even if the officers in charge, who were taken out of action right away, honestly thought that bringing the artillery, with its horses and its gunners, to within killing range of several hundred sharp shooters would be an effective strategy, it would not have taken long to figure out that they were wrong. Yet once the operation started up, the “right” thing to do was not to back off, not to question authority, not to run and hide because death was a near certainty and success impossible. No. The “right” thing to do was do die, and the reason to die was because … well, because it was the right thing to do. Those soldiers that were hiding in the hollow or the hut were forgiven by Doyle, because there was not much they could do. But the soldiers that stayed with the artillery were honoured by him, and by the British Government and the people back home and their comrades.
The meme of honourable death served the British Empire well.
via The meme of honourable death : Greg Laden’s Blog.