The Law of Sacrifice

When you hear the word sacrifice, people think it means giving up something that they really value for something that they don’t value. I’ve pulled up the word sacrifice from my macbook dictionary and it says “An act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else regarded as more important or worthy.” The first one that came up was “An act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure.” Unfortunately, if you thought that’s what I was talking about, you’re on the wrong page. My apologies to the people that worship satan. But The Law of Sacrifice really is giving up something good to receive something better. This law is probably the most misunderstood law of all.

The biggest key to this law is discipline. Sacrifice requires a disciplined state of mind. Without discipline, sacrifice is useless. People hear the word sacrifice, and it scares them to death. There’s absolutely no reason for you to get scared of this. If sacrifice means that something is being traded in for something better, you should be thrilled. It’s just a lack of knowledge and understanding that makes people fearful. The worst aspect of this fear is that it spoils the whole outlook on sacrifice. Then again, most of us are programmed to think that sacrifice is bad. We couldn’t be more wrong--that is, unless we’re talking about slaughtering animals for a black mass. What people have to understand is, something always has to be sacrificed in order to get something else.

This law and The Law of Receiving are pretty similar. In both laws, you have to give up something in order to receive. Something for nothing does not exist in either of these laws. The Law of Sacrifice is giving up something good to receive something better. In the Law of Sacrifice, there is no such thing as holding onto something good and receiving something better. So if you want to get in shape, you have to sacrifice the couch for going to the gym to workout. You can’t get in shape by sitting on the couch. If you want to be healthier, you have to sacrifice junk food for healthy food. You can’t eat junk food all the time and be healthy. If you want to get a promotion at work, you have to sacrifice happy hour for putting more time at your workplace. If you want to be a better person, you have to sacrifice your ego for your higher-self. 

A great example of The Law of Sacrifice being used in action was when Brett Favre, legendary Quarterback of the Green Bay Packers, chose to retire and then wanted to come back. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay’s current Quarterback, was Favre’s back-up for three years. He was given the starting QB position when Favre decided to retire. Then Favre wanted to come back. Packers coach Mike McCarthy had to make a choice of who he wanted to have as his starting QB. Brett Favre, who is a veteran and who had been with Green Bay for 17 seasons, or Aaron Rodgers who had been Favre’s back up for 3 years. That’s when the decision was made to start Aaron Rodgers. As a result Favre went to the Jets first, and then ended up with rival Minnesota Vikings in 2009. The Vikings swept the Packers, but lost NFC Championship game to the Saints. In 2010, the Packers swept the Vikings and won Super Bowl XLV in Chatsworth, TX. The Packers’ sacrifice of Brett Favre was one of the biggest sacrifices the team ever had to make; but it helped them earn their 4th Super Bowl.

When using The Law of Sacrifice, you have to make sure you’re making worthy sacrifices. You don’t want to sacrifice something good for something bad. Raymond Holliwell has a great example on his chapter on sacrifice.“You cannot enjoy the satisfactions and pleasure of true friendship and indulge in a bad temper.” I’ve been on both sides of this, and I can assure you, you really can’t. All friends are going to have bad sides. You have to realize that those personality flaws have nothing to do with you. It’s not worth focusing your attention on it. Sacrifice paying attention to your friend’s bad side and focus on the good in them instead.  

So if you want to become the very best at something in life, it all starts with sacrifice and a disciplined state of mind. Raymond Holliwell again says it best. “An undisciplined life is an insane life.”