When the answers are given to you, the challenge of solving the questions is taken.
When money is given to you, the test of figuring out how to make it for yourself is taken.
When a privileged path to success is given to you, exploring/wandering/getting lost is taken.
Those who get it easy don’t get the depth that comes from overcoming the hard.
Most of us wish everything was just given to us. But, forget what gets taken as a result.
Let me assure you that approximately none of us start “good” at anything.
Take meditating for example. Expecting to be “good” at meditating when you first start is like expecting to be “good” at Martial Arts when you come to your first class.
The point isn’t to arrive “good”—the point is to start where you are and improve.
Besides the rare few who are “born enlightened,” I’m of the opinion that all of us have busy, irrational, crazed monkey minds which make meditating exceptionally hard.
…Which is precisely why we should be spending time practicing it.
What we need to do isn’t *not* meditate because its hard. What we need to do is better manage our expectations.
Meditating isn’t about closing our eyes and being able to experience a magical ceasing of all incoming thoughts. Not a chance.
It’s about stopping the flow of incoming information and allowing what’s there to settle.
When I meditate, I spend probably less than a minute out of twenty actually free from thinking. This is an excellent day of meditation for me.
In fact, any day I practice meditating is an excellent day of meditating—because I practiced it.
Get it?
The practice is the reward. Just like in Martial Arts. What are belts but an external motivation tactic to encourage training?
The end goal (black belt) is simply a motivation tactic that’s designed to get you to practice.
So, if you want to become a “black belt” in meditation (or anything), humble yourself and start practicing like a white belt.
When work aligns with your strengths, it flows and feels easy—even when it’s hard.
When work aligns with your weaknesses, it crawls and feels hard—even when it’s easy.
A good indication that you’re in alignment with your strengths is if you lose track of time while working.
If you find yourself constantly checking the time, either the work you’re doing is too mundane or you’re in alignment with your weaknesses.
Ask yourself: What’s easy for you that’s hard for others?
And then figure out ways you can do more of that.
Things usually get harder before they get easier.
If things aren’t going as easily as you’d like, maybe it’s because you’re avoiding what’s hard.
The solution, of course, is to stop avoiding what’s hard and confront it head on.
Only then will the path finally become easier.
What some people can do to stay fit isn’t what you might have to do to stay fit.
Remember this when others are:
It’s easy to want to respond with resentment, envy, jealousy, even hatred.
This does nothing, however, for your fitness or mental health.
And that which doesn’t serve you, shouldn’t be served up by you.
Harder would be to respond with curiosity, strength, willpower, even love.
Love for the challenge; love for the insight; love for the connection; love for the growth.
Those who get it easy don’t get the depth that comes from overcoming the hard.
Writing a book is hard. Writing one sentence is easy.
Earning a black belt in martial arts is hard. Attending one class is easy.
Freeing yourself from the grips of anxiety is hard. Meditating for a few minutes is easy.
Everything in life that’s hard, is just a series of things that are easy.
You just have to break things down further and take the first, small step.
And then take it again. And again. Until you’ve done what’s hard.
When we confront challenges in life, it’s in our nature to seek the path of least resistance and to look for ways we can make those challenges easier.
One such method is by dumping our challenges on other people. Because if someone else will confront the challenge for us, who is presumably stronger, why not let them? (1) They’re stronger and (2) it’ll be easier for us! Well, this is precisely why we shouldn’t.
While it’s quite admirable that someone would do such a kind thing for another, here’s what we have to remember: borrowing strength builds weakness.
People who confront other people’s challenges for them become nothing more than a “crutch.” And while being a crutch is okay when someone is really broken—like how crutches are used to rehab a broken leg—at a certain point we have to take the crutches away. If we don’t, the muscles will continue to atrophy and weaken.
The challenge is precisely what’s needed for growth.
Likewise, at some point, we have to stop seeking “crutches” and stop being other people’s “crutch.” We have to bear the full weight of the consequences associated with our actions. It’s the only way we’ll ever build up the strength we desire so badly to have.