I know this much about you: at one time or another your chances for a better life, once very high, changed and seemed dim. Your spirits plummeted because whatever advantage you once held had slipped away. On another day you regained the advantage. Then your spirits instantly soared, and you were the one thing you had always wished to be: happy.
The swing of the advantage–to you or away from you–is something that-occurs in every aspect of your life and mine from childhood through old age. The advantage is like a
ball passing back and forth between you and life. No one ever holds the advantage all the time. The advantage can swing to you or away from you at any time. Sometimes you hold the advantage, and an ideal life and great achievements in your career or personal life seem so near you can touch them with your fingers. Then you suffer a setback, a crisis, or a major problem, and you’re driven down into the dark depths of discouragement. You have lost the advantage, and your need now is to get it back.
Then you shake off discouragement and take decisive action. Once you’re in action, opportunities appear like jewels you pick up off the ground. The advantage is yours once more, and a better life unfolds like the petals of a rose. Your dreams are no longer mere fantasies but facts that you now incorporate into your life You turn directions, changing into a new being. For example, the success you wanted was to publish a book. You work hard. Your book is published, and now the identity that will never leave you is yours: “published author.
“The Swing of the Advantage” is a concept from my print best seller Fighting to Win: Samurai Techniques for Your Work and Life (now available as an eBook). From the twelfth through the nineteenth centuries Japanese samurai (bushi) were fighting men and women in service of a lord, a “daimyo.” They were the greatest warriors who ever lived, and based their expertise on physical, psychological, and Zen spiritual insights and techniques that they acquired through as demanding training as there has ever been in any discipline. Their skills were legendary. Fighting To Win prescribes their spiritual/psychological insights and adaptations of their techniques for overcoming obstacles to a productive and fulfilling life.
Samurai tactics never changed. They are a philosophy and life style–a “kamae,” a battle stance or posture,” a “Way.” They are “zan totsu“–which means “rushing straight ahead into action” and “mo chih ch’u,” which is “going ahead confidently without hesitation.” The samurai were conditioned to confront, not avoid, difficulties, to embrace them, to race directly and swiftly to what you fear most. Were we to rush into our fear without hesitations many of our problems would be dispensed with quickly. When you approach your life and your work mo chih ch’u, fearlessly, your strength increases fourfold and you go straight to your goal.
Samurai were taught “Trust only movement” and “Test your armor, but only test the front” because you are not in action–in your everyday life, in your occupation and other pursuits–to run away and hide from “inner dragons.” Dragons are the sum total of all your fears, anxieties, and inhibitions. Seeking freedom from dragons, samurai “strike through the 
dragon’s mask.”
You can use this samurai concept of the swing of the advantage to gain victories. Like samurai you can face up to difficulties and rush to the attack—confronting and overcoming obstacles, not hesitating, not hanging back, but solving problems–dispensing with useless patterns of thought and action that have led you from your goals rather than to them. Then you will be filled with the exhilarating surge of the powerful energy (“ki’) of a man or woman on the attack. You are not looking back, not fearful of facing up to what lies ahead in the fog of life, but committed in spirit and mind to the action in front of you not tomorrow, but in this single fleeting moment of time, gaining back the swing of the advantage before this moment ends.
Let’s say you’re afraid to take a chance and the opportunity slips away. You’ve given up the advantage. But then you take the chance and succeed. You’ve seized the advantage back. Sometimes your diet is going well. But at other times you ravenously raid the cookie jar Once again fattening food has gained the advantage and your self-esteem and health are in jeopardy. But then you get a little angry and recommit yourself, and achieve your target weight. You have regained the advantage.
Prescriptions
- Recognize and be prepared for swings of the advantage–sometimes to you and other times away from you. Because you and I are alive, neither of us is a stranger to the swing of the advantage.
- Make the loss of the advantage only a temporary impediment. Say to yourself, “Oops, there goes the advantage.” Then quickly, without stopping to bemoan your plight, use your determination, spirit, and decisive action to get it back. And when it swings back over to you–when you have solved a longstanding problem, for example, or overcome an obstacle that has stopped you for as long as you can remember–don’t stop to congratulate yourself. Don’t stop at all. When you’re gaining ground on a better life say, “You can’t escape me. I’m on your trail.” Just keep moving in the only direction that matters–forward toward your goals.
- Don’t delude yourself into believing you have the advantage when you don’t. Life is to be looked at in one way–squarely in the eye–and a fool’s paradise is hell in disguise.
- Maintain a powerful spirit–confident and daring–that cannot be stopped however far away from you the advantage has swung. It couldn’t matter less how often you’ve lost the advantage or how far away from you it swings, only that you have it when it matters most.
Application
Is there any area in your personal or professional life right now in which the advantage has swung away from you? What will you do to get the advantage back? Whatever it is, don’t delay. Run straight toward it zan totsu–boldly.
© 2020 David J. Rogers
For my interview from the international teleconference with Ben Dean about Fighting to Win, click the following link:
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From childhood on, there have been moments in my life–and I think you have experienced this in your life too—when I’ve had to perform and no one could help me—not my mother, not my wife, not a friend.
It’s very lonely knowing that whether or not you will succeed depends solely on your own skills, your own personality and character, your own preparation, and your own strengths. Then no one can help you, no one can write the novel for you, no one can paint the portrait for you today, or dance in your place, or perform your role in tonight’s play. You’re on your own, my friend. Will you be at the height of your talent today or won’t you? Will you have it? Will your work be good? Will you be satisfied?
When you write, you’re asking yourself, “Does it sound right?” “Does it flow?” “Is it a good quality?” You’re also “self-instructing.” Self-instruction is talking to yourself to guide actions and telling yourself what strategies you should use. A writer may self-instruct to use more imagery in the story, and self-monitor to count the number of images or tell herself, “My mind is starting to wander. I should focus my attention better.”
Boil your whole performance down to a few statements, words, phrases, or images:
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