People worry about the competition, lawsuits, or someone stealing their ideas. Though all of these might cause problems, in the long run, they won’t matter. Other humans are not the enemy. The only true antagonist in our struggle to live the best life we can possibly live is time — and even that is hard to blame.
When you’re building a business around art or intellectual works, you’re erecting a monument in the river of time. The only challenge is its ever-flowing, unrelenting current. Can you release good books fast enough to not be washed away? Can you stack beautiful paintings high enough to weather the next torrent?
The same applies to running a sports club, starting a law firm, and raising your kids. Time, time, time. Time needs to go in, and time is constantly slipping away. Can you scoop enough hours into the thing you care about to withstand the slowly draining minutes carrying it into oblivion? At the end of the day, this is the only game we’re playing. The only challenger worth paying attention to.
Don’t look left and right. Don’t fret about what other people are doing, be it to you, behind you, or in front of you. You only have one force to reckon with, and though it does not care at all, it is the greatest force of all. You are building against the current of time, and while it is your only opponent, it is also the very weapon with which you must win the fight. Keep building, and never forget to watch the river.