If I ask you, “What does one want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to be happy and have an excellent family and employment i prefer ,” it’s so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even mean anything. A more interesting question, an issue that perhaps you’ve never considered before, is what pain does one want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up . Everybody wants to possess a tremendous job and financial independence — but not everyone wants to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and therefore the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the danger , without the sacrifice, without the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth. Everybody wants to possess great sex and an awesome relationship — but not most are willing to travel through the tough conversations, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and therefore the emotional psychodrama to urge there. then they settle. They settle and wonder “What if?” for years and years until the question morphs from “What if?” into “Was that it?” And when the lawyers head home and therefore the alimony check is within the mail they assert , “What was that for?” if not for his or her lowered standards and expectations 20 years prior, then what for? Because happiness requires struggle. The positive is that the side effect of handling the negative. you'll only avoid negative experiences for therefore long before they are available roaring back to life. At the core of all human behavior, our needs are more or less similar. Positive experience is straightforward to handle. It’s negative experience that we all, by definition, struggle with. Therefore, what we get out of life isn't determined by the great feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we’re willing and ready to sustain to urge us to those good feelings. People want a tremendous physique. But you don’t find yourself with one unless you legitimately appreciate the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless you're keen on calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life call at tiny plate-sized portions. People want to start out their own business or become financially independent. But you don’t find yourself a successful entrepreneur unless you discover how to understand the danger , the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and dealing insane hours on something you've got no idea whether are going to be successful or not.
People need a partner, a spouse. But you don’t find yourself attracting someone amazing without appreciating the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It’s a part of the sport of affection . You can’t win if you don’t play. What determines your success isn’t “What does one want to enjoy?” The question is, “What pain does one want to sustain?” the standard of your life isn't determined by the standard of your positive experiences but the standard of your negative experiences. And to urge good at handling negative experiences is to urge good at handling life. There’s tons of crappy advice out there that says , “You’ve just need to want it enough!” Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something enough. they only aren’t conscious of what it's they need , or rather, what they need “enough.” Because if you would like the advantages of something in life, you've got to also want the prices . If you would like the beach body, you've got to require the sweat, the soreness, the first mornings, and therefore the hunger pangs. If you would like the yacht, you've got to also want the late nights, the risky business moves, and therefore the possibility of pissing off an individual or ten thousand. If you discover yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer thereto , then maybe what you really want may be a fantasy, an idealization, a picture and a false promise. Maybe what you would like isn’t what you would like , you only enjoy wanting. Maybe you don’t actually want it in the least .
For most of my adolescence and young adulthood, I fantasized about being a musician — a rocker , especially . Any badass guitar song I heard, i might always close my eyes and envision myself abreast of stage playing it to the screams of the gang , people absolutely losing their minds to my sweet finger-noodling. This fantasy could keep me occupied for hours on end. The fantasizing continued up through college, even after I dropped out of music school and stopped playing seriously. But even then it had been never an issue of if I’d ever be up playing ahead of screaming crowds, but when. i used to be biding my time before I could invest the right amount of your time and energy into getting out there and making it work. First, I needed to end school. Then, I needed to form money. Then, I needed to seek out the time. Then… then nothing.
Despite fantasizing about this for over half my life, the truth never came. And it took me an extended time and tons of negative experiences to finally find out why: I didn’t actually want it. i used to be crazy with the result — the image of me on stage, people cheering, me rocking out, pouring my heart into what I’m playing — but I wasn’t crazy with the method . and since of that, I failed at it. Repeatedly. Hell, I didn’t even try hard enough to fail at it. I hardly tried in the least . The daily drudgery of practicing, the logistics of finding a gaggle and rehearsing, the pain of finding gigs and truly getting people to point out up and provides a shit. The broken strings, the blown tube amp, hauling 40 pounds of drugs to and from rehearsals with no car. It’s a mountain of a dream and a mile-high climb to the highest . And what it took me an extended time to get is that I didn’t wish to climb much. I just liked to imagine the highest . Our culture would tell me that I’ve somehow failed myself, that I’m a quitter or a loser. Self-help would say that I either wasn’t courageous enough, determined enough or I didn’t believe myself enough. The entrepreneurial/start-up crowd would tell me that I chickened out on my dream and gave in to my conventional social conditioning. I’d be told to try to to affirmations or join a mastermind group or manifest or something. But the reality is way less interesting than that: i assumed I wanted something, but it seems I didn’t. End of story.
I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the method . i used to be crazy not with the fight but only the victory. And life doesn’t work that way. Who you're is defined by the values you're willing to struggle for. people that enjoy the struggles of a gym are those who get in fine condition . people that enjoy long workweeks and therefore the politics of the company ladder are those who move up it. people that enjoy the stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist lifestyle are ultimately those who live it and make it. this is often not a involve willpower or “grit.” this is often not another admonishment of “no pain, no gain.”This is that the most straightforward and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. So choose your struggles wisely, my friend.
