Complacency is the mortal enemy of growth and continued success. It is easy to take success for granted and presume that because we have been successful in the past, success will continue to be our friend in the future. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is that you have to work harder the more successful you become—your competitors have learned from your success and are all out to beat you.

Self complacency is fatal to progress.

Self-conceit is the enemy of progress.

Comfort is the enemy of progress.

Achievement will continue at the same or a greater level only if you do not permit the infection of success to take hold of you and your organization. The symptom of that infection is called complacency. Contentment with past accomplishments or acceptance of the status quo can derail an organization quickly. In sports or business, getting to the top is difficult. One of the reasons staying there is so rare is because the infection sets in.

The truth is, complacency has impacted all great empires, including, but not limited to, the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English. Why? Because nothing fails like success.

Why do we create such pain and suffering for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters in other countries? Maitreya would say because of complacency, which He says is the root of all evil. When we are complacent, we say: “I am all right, thank you very much. The rest of the world can look after itself.” This comes from the false idea that we are separate. This is the great illusion, the great heresy. Each one of us, whether we know it or not, is a soul in incarnation, a perfect, divine, spiritual Being in incarnation. p. 8

Busyness is the unrivaled archenemy of spiritual authenticity.

Be contented with your fate, for discontent leads to unhappiness, and unhappiness, in any form, is the greatest evil that can befall you.

Comfort is the enemy of progress

With... small-town life... there are hundreds of thousands... who are not content. The more intelligent young people... flee to the cities... and... stay there, seldom returning even for holidays. The reason, Carol insisted... is an unimaginatively standardized background, a sluggishness of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the desire to appear respectable. It is contentment... the contentment of the quiet dead, who are scornful of the living for their restless walking. It is the prohibition of happiness. It is the slavery self-sought and self-defended. It is dullness made God. A savorless people, gulping tasteless food and sitting afterward, coatless and thoughtless, in rocking-chairs prickly with inane decorations, listening to mechanical music, saying mechanical things about the excellence of Ford automobiles, and viewing themselves as the greatest race in the world.

Boredom, cynicism, and despair are spiritual diseases because they disconnect us from the most primal truth about ourselves - that we are here.

Success! Success! The enemy of progress!

"This is a culture that is very hostile to complacency," said one executive. "We have an itch that what we just accomplished, no matter how great, is never going to be good enough to sustain us," said another.