TL;DR To become one of the Greats, you must be able to face the greatest stresses and come out on top. As you fight bigger stresses every day, your capacity for greatness grows. Challenge your fucking self, your country, and your people to grow or be doomed to mediocrity amongst the proles.

Body These last couple of days, weeks and months in my life have been very stressful on my development. Stress in this regard, is a good thing because it is a necessity for growth. On TRP the first thing we recommend to newcomers is to lift. Why? Among the many physical benefits, it’s also because the people flocking to this site are flabby minded as well as bodied. Just as muscles won’t grow without being stressed, your mind and soul won’t grow without stress. With the more stress placed upon an object, there is more capacity for growth than without it. However, it goes without saying that the very stress critical for growth can also induce collapse.

This is a universal truth that I have seen in my life. Give two people the same circumstances and the weaker man will irk the demanding hour while the stronger will embrace it fully and become greater than the sum stress. The management of this greatness-giving stress is one of the most crucial factors in a Great’s development. Countless examples envelope both current events and human history. Teddy Roosevelt himself became a man of history when he was born sickly and developed his iron will by waging war against those stresses limiting him. By living The Strenuous Life, he gained and pushed his limits back daily just as a country would wage war to push enemy lines back. In this arena, once ground is gained it is forever yours. This expansion against your limits allow for more greatness, room for error, confidence, strength and resources to pull upon in your daily life. The accumulation of all these factors aid in the further accumulation of these factors. The ends become the means and the means become the end on the never ending journey for human greatness.

Thomas Jefferson, one of mankind’s greats, rose to such an Olympian height only by climbing the steps of the trying mountain of stress. Namely, the beginning of the American Revolution and the grim outlook during the early stages of the British invasion on his precious Virginia. The death of his young children and his beloved wife induced his momentary collapse but ultimately helped lay the foundation for his climb to the peaks of greatness. Abraham Lincoln’s own ascent to the top started in the nine arenas of hell where he fought deeply with his depression (See Lincoln’s Melancholy for further reading). This climb prepared him for one of the greatest tasks to ever have befallen a President, to reunify his own country and end American Slavery. Lincoln steeled himself into an immovable, overshadowing, and resolute figure in his twenties by embracing his depression and following it to the bottom. In this hellish mental, emotional, and soulful plane he led himself into the fires of pain, until he was malleable enough for the stresses to strike upon him and shape him into his greatness. It was in this blacksmith’s shop where he steeled himself into a human sword of mythical strength.

This leads me back to stress and how it is the way to greatness. “The Obstacle is The Way” as Ryan Holiday titled his book, is an ancient truth he found in both the Eastern Ancients and in the Romans; Marcus Aurelius to be specific. The greatest peaks, valleys, canyons, rivers and landscapes on this beautiful Earth are all products of stress. As tectonic plates crash together stressfully, peaks rise to forever show their gains in stature. Once a canyon is carved by water, the water will forever flow with more rapidity. It this truth found in both nature and humankind that we must embrace in order to reach the Olympian cliffs. Don’t brace yourself, embrace it.

Lessons Learned

• View stress as war. You are at the center and you’re enemy is closing in all around you. As you fight, you get stronger and push the enemy lines back. You have gained strength and ground but the enemy is immortal. As you keep fighting, gaining ground, and growing your empire, the greater you become. If greatness is your goal, fight and beat back your enemy every day until the day you die.

• The greatest humans to have ever walked this earth are so revered because they fought on the biggest stages and came out triumphant. Jefferson-American Revolution, Lincoln- Civil War, Churchill- WW2.

• The more stress you embrace in your life, the more growth you will see.

• The highest peaks on this Earth and the lowest canyons are products of stress.