In life, you have spectators and participants, and everything in between, as in dualism, you have everything from above to below, and everything between above and below. In fact, this article is mainly about the participants who actually win, not the viewers who want to win without putting in the efforts of the participants. So, I’ll cut to the chase: When I came up with this article, I was thinking about the college cheating scandal in the news involving rich people paying for their less talented children to go to high school. the Ivy League and being “party”. homeless”, while more people who serve people who really need and want education and qualify for education are turned away by these same Ivy League schools. I mention this because we need genuine participants in life, not just glorified spectators who they are balance artists who cheat to appear to be participants in life.

We all want an “easy way”, even those of us who genuinely worked hard at it, even a genius like Michelangelo, who essentially said with me paraphrasing, of course, “If I could do the Sistine Chapel and the Statue of David easily, I would.” I would, and if you knew how hard these things have been worked on, you wouldn’t think it was such genius.” That brings me to a point, we all want shortcuts to greatness, even the best of us who see “cheaters making it easy”. I just mentioned a key to human nature and the human condition there: We all want it to be easy, even those who are willing to work harder, work smarter, and use what we have in great ways that are genuine genius. If we could have it easy without the terribly twisted consequences of cheating, we would. That’s my point. The difference between winners, losers and breakeven artists is this. Winners are willing to work smart, work hard, or work smart and hard. Genuine losers can only envy and be spectators ultimately because they are unwilling to go out, and even breaking artists are immediately lucky with good fortune at first that is not repeatable. Anything less than a true winner pays the price, often a high price. I know it’s a seemingly “bad” thing, as Vincent Lombardi says, but I have the benefit of being honest about it. In this season of Lent I go beyond truth to honesty, especially with myself. Sure, I gave up even telling “white lies” or lies at all or even half the truth for my Lenten sacrifice as a Christian. In fact, though, I’d rather tell it like it is and pay the right way than lie, follow my “natural” human nature, and pay a higher price. After all, what do you think is the true nature of losers and breakeven artists? Especially when they try to duplicate their “lucky hits” with skill and true genius. That’s where the real winners come in anyway, the people willing to develop the ability to repeat victory with skill and understanding gained and to be genuinely cool.

So in life, you have spectators and participants, and everything in between, like in dualism, you have everything from above to below, and everything between above and below. But going beyond that dualism, you have cold cause and effect, which is the ultimate dualism where the cause is the master and the effect is the servant of the cause. To make a right cause to get a right result, no matter how difficult it is, no matter how hard it is, that is the key to truly winning.

So, I close with a thought about a book I own and have read several times by a guy named Bern Wheeler. He essentially says that we must strive to live in a winning manner. “The One and Only Law of Winning” is not just a title, it is a reality and a reality that the honest and truly sane live by.