“..The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” —Marcus Aurelius
I love the movie, GLADIATOR. A story of a general who became a slave; a slave who became a gladiator; a gladiator who saved Rome, not the Empire.
Camadus, a paranoid prince, killed his father, the Cesar because of greed and fear.
“Oh Camadus, Maximus is a brave warrior with a purpose. You’re a greedy and afraid of insignificance. You’re an entitled little boy who wants to control the empire and people of Rome.”
People with paranoia disorder have an unrealistic distrust of others. They fear they’re being persecuted or replaced. They walk into a room and fear that people are talking about them. They lack the ability to understand others while their brain is waiting for the next brick of abandonment to drop.
We need to think like gladiators.
Theodore Roosevelt said it best,
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
We are gladiators for TRUTH. The Truth has a name, JESUS.. We’re his foot soldiers carrying the sword, his word. When you think it’s about you, you become like King Saul. He was one of the most paranoid, anxious, and fearful character in the Bible. In 1 Samuel 22:6-19, he thinks the whole world is against him. He accuses his closest supporters of revolution and murder. Sadly he was killed by his own sword. Ironically Camadus, too, died by his own dagger.