Yee, everything Mara throws to you is a challenge, it really is. It's a type of battlefield. You know, they say that army generals like to play chess. They say politicians like to play golf. Chess has an element of trying to figure out, of really being careful of what the other person is going to do, trying to have advance warning and trying to be aware. Chess has all these things. Golf is about hitting a ball, it's not a big deal, and costs a lot of money compared to chess, too, so generals have it a little better there.
To see it as a challenge. If a general goes into war and he is afraid, he not going to be a good general. If a general respects the enemy, they are going to be a very good general. This is interesting, there is an American movie about one of the army generals in World War II. In the movie, they showed the general talking with his advisors about the German general. What does he like to do? Does he do poetry, does he play chess, does he do all these different things, and also show the german general talking with his advisors about the American general, he believes in reincarnation, and knows all the details about the opposing German general. Both of these generals know all the details of the opposite general. This was because they respected the enemy and they wanted to try to think how the enemy thought, to know what the enemy might do next, to be ready for any challenge.
Now Mara is really very much the same, we have to respect Mara, because if we don't respect Mara, we are going to loose, Mara is going to beat us up.
So try to view everything Mara throws at you, that's your challenge for the day. What are you going to do? All these things are definitely challenges. If you can see it that way, you can fight the battle better.