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Every Great Achievement Is the Victory of a Flaming Heart

Chasing comfort will only take you so far

John Mashni
5 min readMay 26, 2021

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A bloodied young man walks up to an old Buddhist monastery. He seeks protection, but also revenge against the men who killed his family. His last hope is a hidden school that is rumored to teach exactly what he needs to know. He desperately pleads with the gatekeeper to allow him to enter and train with the teachers. The door closes, though, after a quick rejection.

In that moment, the young man faces an important choice: accept the rejection as his fate, or dismiss the rejection and treat it as the first step in his training.

The young man, admirably, refuses to leave. He then plants himself outside the entrance.

And he waits.

He huddles close to the door. He sits in the mud and decides that there is no future for him, other than passing through that door.

Days pass but the young man remains still. He abandons all regard for any other aspect of life. He certainly suffers, through rain and cold, but he doesn’t know it. The young man is immovable — until the door opens.

Eventually, the elders who rejected the young man realize the strength of the man’s desire. What type of person would plant himself next to a closed door, only…

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John Mashni
John Mashni

Written by John Mashni

I only write about what I have done: no theory. Writer, Attorney, Entrepreneur, Movie Producer, and more… the ONLY 3 ways to reinvent: goo.gl/S1Lu6x

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