Week 6: Conquer

When you hear the word conquer, what comes to mind first? Scaling a mountain? Overcoming your fears? My mind goes straight to Gladiators, Crusades and war with blood and gore.  It is a tough word; it feels very brutal, actually. I don’t relate to it, and it makes me wrinkle my nose honestly. It is a masculine word- arrogant and unnecessary…… At the same time it feels outdated and primitive for today’s world; there are no new frontiers to conquer. We have evolved beyond the days of the crusades and battling for kingdoms.  The first definition in the dictionary is ” to overcome and take control of by use of military force”. When you look at the second and third definitions, they become more contemporary sounding. Given these definitions, I can better relate to the word. The second is to climb a mountain successfully, and lastly, to successfully overcome problems or weakness…… I still don’t like the word, but I can surely identify with the third definition.  It sometimes feels like the problems and weakness are never ending, and we forget to give ourselves credit for all the little things we conquer each day.  

When I change my perspective, I find it a bit easier to relate to the word. I can relate to conquering your demons because demons deserve a fiery death… the majority of humans don’t.  My favorite quote this week is from Buddha “To conquer oneself is a greater task than to conquer others”….. Such a huge high five to Buddha for making the word so much more relatable to me. I am totally my own worst enemy and my only competition. There is nothing I need to conquer other than my own demons. Even after spending time trying to think from another perspective, I realized I am not a conqueror, I am a nurturer. Conquering makes me think of hurting others and I just don’t like it…. or an exorcism…..  I don’t even think I need to conquer my demons, I think I need to type them away. Queens don’t quit, we conquer…. with words.