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Faustian Bargains: How To Avoid Trading Your True Life Away for Even Worse Outcomes
The following is an excerpt of my book — Real Help: An Honest Guide to Self-Improvement
“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn’t exist.” — Keyser Söze
The devil exists, but not in the form you imagine. No, there is no red-skinned, horn-headed, fire and brimstone lair ruler, but there is an insidious force that exists to kill your dreams. Steven Pressfield calls this force Resistance — a more apt name than something benign like self-doubt.
Here’s Pressfield’s definition of it, straight from his classic book The War of Art:
“Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.”