Do the work

Steven Pressfi

eld

Do Th

e Work!

58
Welcome to Hell

Now you’re in the shit.

Now you’re feeling the symptoms. Now you’re ready to listen.

Th

e next ten chapters are the most

important in this book.

Th

ey’re the movie within the movie, the dance within the dance.

If you take away nothing else from this document, take this section.

It delineates the Seven Principles

of Resistance and the two Tests.

Th

ese principles govern and underlie everything you’re experi-

encing now. Th

ese tests are being set for you.

Th

is is your trial by fi

re.

What follows is what you need to know to get to the other side.

Principle Number One: There Is an Enemy Th

e fi

rst principle of Resistance is that there is an enemy.

In our feel-g

ood, social

-safety-net, high-self-esteem world, you

and I have been brainwashed to believe that there is no such thing as evil, that human nature is perfectible, that everyone and everything can be made nice. We have been conditioned to imagine that the darkness that we see in the world and feel in our own hearts is only an illusion, which can be dispelled by the proper care, the proper love, the proper education, and the proper funding.It can’t.

Th

ere is an enemy. Th

ere is an

intelligent, active, malign force

working against us.

Step one is to recognize this.

Th

is recognition alone is

enormously powerful. It saved my

life, and it will save yours.