Avoiding Self-Defeat

British culture encodes an anti-sabotage prescription of "keep a stiff upper lip", which means to persevere without making dramatic displays of pain, doubt, and other normal dissuasions that accompany efforts to achieve goals.

Complaints destroy morale and persuade even the complainer to give in to weakness from discomforts, needing no rational assessment of the goal's near attainability or consideration that complaints are the primary obstacle to success, and their introduction is the most damaging wound, an attack made worse because it is self-inflicted.

We measured the tasks constituting our plan, accepted that we would encounter difficulties, and take pains to complete what we said we would. To whine grievously and undermine our past decision is to nullify will and spirit, as if we are unfit for life and despise it.

Instead, we affirm all, and continue on our mission without petty hysterical chatter.