We tend to imagine that in order to move to a better life, we need to have an appetite for relentless self-improvement. An undying drive for accomplishment.
But based on my personal experience, I think that the ability to finally summon enough willpower to get up and start fixing the part of your life that sucks is none other than continuous struggle.
To put it simply, you don't change because you don't struggle enough.
When things are "meh" - not good, but also not particularly awful - we usually stay put.
"Yeah, I'm probably not living my best ultimate life, but at least I’m not completely miserable," is a concept that lives in our heads. Plainly, we are OK with the gravity of the situation - even if it's far from perfect.
But when, for months in a row, we’re grinding away at a job that drains us because our boss is micromanaging every single aspect of our work. Or when we wake up every morning, look in the mirror, and see a body that’s soft, weak, and tired because we’ve been neglecting our health. We hit a breaking point. And, something that has never happened before happens: we get up and say to ourselves, usually subconsciously, the following: "Today's the day I'm going to quit my job!" Or, "Today's the day that I am going to start working out!"
But why wait?
Why wait for something to start causing unbearable pain to serve as motivation to act?
Because we secretly hope that the situation will fix itself without us doing anything about it.
If we work a shitty job where the pay is low and the hours are long, we cling to the hope that a new manager will swoop in and make things better - saving us from having to update our résumé, go through interviews, or needing to learn new skills to shift to a totally new line of work.
Or, if we’re out of shape and feeling sluggish, we convince ourselves that we'll start exercising once life "calms down."
But these, as you can probably sense, are only ways to avoid taking responsibility.
To flourish, we have to confront an uncomfortable fact about making our day-to-day existence better: It's up to us.
It's up to us to move the trajectory of our lives from meh to oh-so-much better.
Worth reflecting on:
What am I struggling with, but not doing anything about it?
A single struggling moment is usually not enough. If you are out of breath when you take the stairs because you have been neglecting exercising, you simply avoid taking the stairs.
We love to indulge in denial or enter a state of escapism - trying not to think about the problem - when fixing the problem requires effort on our part.
Thinking about your struggles before they become a bigger issue is a good way to prevent disaster.
Worth reading:
From my desk:
- How to Overcome the Hot-Cold Empathy Gap: "We learn, the hard way, that when we are not in pain or experiencing a strong emotion like anger or sadness, it’s very difficult to imagine ourselves in that situation."
From around the web:
Worth thinking about:
"I did everything fast. Thought fast, ate fast, talked fast and walked fast. I even sang my songs fast. I needed to slow my mind down if I was going to be a composer with anything to say."
― Bob Dylan
Nasty and ill-typed behaviors plagued me for years. And for years, I didn't do much to change things. It wasn’t until I hit rock bottom that I began rethinking certain aspects of my life. But also, the so-called change came from me no longer trying to attune my actions according to what society defines as normal.
For example, part of the reason I was a broke, liquid-craving fanatic was because it was considered cool and a "must do" to go out and drink at the trendiest bars.
When I stopped trying to fit into the mainstream narrative, I found the space and courage to do different things with my life. Not at all considered popular, but at least I detached from lifestyle choices that were slowly eroding my body.
Thank you for your time!
Regards,
