Latinise

I wondered if I had gotten it mixed up when saying it was Merril’s turn to pick a word from the dictionary.  I had not.  My word before her “laughing” was “sew”.  Sew was a word I had a bit of experience with and one I would describe as a “good” word.  I did ask why she gets all the good words and that was reinforced today when my finger fell on the word “latinise”
That word has a couple of meanings and I have gone with the one, “make (a people) conform to the ideas and customs of the ancient Romans…”  I do not know if it is right or not, but I decided to go with some of the characteristics of the Romans I thought were good for me to embrace.
I can up with several which it seems to me are characteristics of any dominant culture.  Their means of achieving these things may differ, but all these things were necessary to their success.  In the same way I feel they are necessary to my success also.  What I chose to look at was things that caused them to dominate their day.  They include things like organized, disciplined, and had vision.
Whenever I see Romans portrayed their organization always stands out to me.  We have twitter, social media, phones and other sorts of media to get our message out.  The best the Romans had was someone on horseback.  Yet for all their inadequacies their society functioned as a cohesive unit.  Their army took care of security and in that environment the society could thrive.  And it did.  In an organized manner.
In the same way I need to be organized.  They reckon aim at nothing and you are sure to hit it.  If I want to aim for something specific, I need to be organized to that end.  There is a good chance it will mean forgoing other things in the single pursuit of what I have in mind.
I have always been impressed by the discipline I have seen displayed by the Roman army.  Being in an army means not doing your own thing.  It means going the extra mile.  It means looking out for one-another, so the fighting unit is an organism rather than a group of individuals.
That can be hard.  Giving up myself for the greater good is something to be decided at the start rather than at the time.  There are always times when “I don’t feel like it.”  Yet the consequence of a group following through with such an outlook always ends in defeat.
I need to be always sharp and focused.  I saw the consequence of not being that way when Australia played Chile in soccer a few years ago.  It seems Chile thought they just needed to turn up to win.  The Australians had other ideas.  They were hungry.  They had worked out what they had to do.  I find the same in table tennis.  It is guaranteed that if I have a win the opponent is out to get me the next time.  A win in the past does not guarantee a win in the future.  I always need to maintain and improve.  Others are, and I will be left behind if not careful.
There are others but the last thing I see the Romans having was vision.  They knew what they wanted and went for it.  Their roads and water systems were legendary.
I need to see something that is not as though it was and do all I can to make it happen.