Newton's Third Law : Equal and Opposite Forces

I’ve always said that which is worth the most, costs the most. Think about it. In this world today we want everything quick and easy. Rarely do we ever want to get our hands down and dirty to get something we want. I guess that’s what happens when we live in a society that is so fast paced. This causes us to become lethargic and apathetic. We begin to expect everything to be given to us rather than having to work a little for it.

I like the way the founding fathers put it in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, which among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” We have the right to the pursuit of happiness. Pursuit is a word which inherently indicates the need for active movement. If we pursue something we are seeking it out with all out abilities. When law enforcement is in a high speed pursuit of a suspect, they pull out all the stops and do all they can to bring the perpetrator to justice.

Each person has the right to define what makes them happy; the common thread that connects all of us is the pursuit. When we choose to work hard and we succeed, we enjoy even more the fruit of our labors. We human beings are naturally slothful. We don’t like to have to work hard for what we want. Coupled with the free market society in which we live, this has lead to an increasingly larger number of individuals who expect what they want, when they want it, for the least amount of work. That’s consumerism at its finest.

The problem with modern consumerism is people begin to expect their every wish to be granted—as if it was their right—regardless whether or not they’ve done what’s necessary to earn it. Like I stated in my post, The Law of Gravity, the laws of nature are just as applicable to our social world as they are to the physical world. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; that is Newton’s third law of motion. There is an opposite in all things. All things.

No matter what we do, no matter where we go or what we say there will always be that equal and opposite force that stands between us and our goal. This is the path of resistance. Resistance has been put in our path so that we can become stronger. Just as lifting weights or training for a marathon builds our physical strength, struggling to achieve our goals make us stronger individuals.

I recently read a book for a writing class I’m taking. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield specifically discusses the issue of winning creative inner battles and breaking through writers block, but the principles which he discusses in the book are universal. Here are some excerpts:

Resistance is Infallible

Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North—meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing. We can use this. We can use it as a compass. We can navigate by Resistance, letting it guide us to that calling or action that we must follow before all others. 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.

That is a powerful idea.  We can use our fallible nature to guide us to do what we should do in this life.

Resistance is fueled by Fear

Resistance has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from within us. We feed it with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.

When we are fearful of something and we feel the urge to just turn and run, that is an indicator we should do it. These two ideas that Pressfield discusses are important for us to understand because they can be tools for us to become better people. When something is hard and we feel the push against us, we should buckle down and press forward because harder something is the more rewarding it will be after we are done. Now, not only do we feel that opposition pushing against us from the outside forces, but also from the inside—that’s the fear within. Fear makes those opposite forces stronger; fear can cripple our ability to progress and move forward in life. So if we are fearful of doing something and it seems too hard to accomplish, we should do it.

Opposition is a blessing. It really is. Without the struggle to attain our goals, we don’t truly grow as individuals nor do we appreciate what we are given. So think about this the next time you are tempted to give up or quit: you’re robbing yourself. You’ve just cheated yourself out of a growing experience. Yes it’s hard and yes I know that you’d rather just do easy things, but don’t prevent yourself from developing as a person.

Remember, opposition (or resistance) is a good thing: it points us towards the direction we should go.

With love,

Will Glade

The one walking beside you.