Velle

I am always skeptical of others ability to overcome themselves. Many people are weak, and struggle against themselves, their fleshly tendencies, and fail to ever master themselves, because they are impatient, because they lack faith in their ability to overcome, because they fail to trust themselves, and the dormant strength they have yet to conjure through trial, and manifest what they could be.

So when I watch a person progress, toward a goal, toward an ideal, in spite of themselves, in spite of the weakness they wrestle with, I am humbled, because I know there is a spirit within them that is greater than than anything in the world. And each step toward fighting that weakness, which is nothing more than animal possession which is satisfied by instant gratification, and not the attainment of those higher ideals which mark the mind of a more conscious being, a more perfect character is formed.

When people reach out to me, and explain their resolution to transform themselves, their lifestyle, their weaker habits, into something that reflects a higher ideal, namely physical fitness, I am inspired.

But so many people reach out to me, and ask for guidance, and fail to realize that, with or without the knowledge I am capable of sharing, a mind committed to an ideal will achieve it by any means necessary, and therefore I possess no insights that cannot also be reached by some other means.

Because, where there is a will, there is a way. And the will must be present, first and foremost. It cannot be taught. It exists only as a result of character, which develops through its own journey of struggle, and never surrenders the cause to overcome it.

The etymology of Will in Latin is Velle, the present active of Volo, meaning I wish.

Also where the word benevolent and malevolent are derived. To wish good or wish bad.