Life is hard. Especially if plan on becoming your best self. Making good choices, achieving big goals, and doing the right thing isn’t always easy. But forget struggles with personal achievements. Just look at the world around you and you’ll see countless injustices from child abuse to hunger, poverty to homelessness, murder and more. Life can offer up some truly “hard knocks,” and when you shift your perspective, it’s easy to see that you probably take for granted the little (and large) luxuries in your life.
Part of the problem is that we live in a “give it to me easy” society. We live in a society of convenience. In the process, we have lost the value of hard work.
Booker T. Washington said, “Nothing ever comes to someone that is worth having except as a result of hard work.” He was right.
And the sooner you understand this. The sooner you will find life easier.
We are programmed to avoid pain. Human beings seek comfort. But if you want the difficult things in life to become easier you need to accept that some things in life are just hard. I often hear people gripe about “not being where they want to be” and wishing they could have “[insert name of envy here’s life].”
Okay, well let me ask you this. Are you willing to do what your object of envy did to get where they are? In all likelihood someone paid the price for that person’s good fortune.
I remember falling victim to wishing that things could be easier. I’d look at my friends who inherited wealth, favor, and a free ride and say, “If only that were me.” Then I woke up. I realized that I didn’t need to wish that it was easier, but that I needed to become better. I needed to be smarter. I needed to work harder.
Once I changed the way I saw things, I realized that by working harder to achieve my goals I was going to make my life easier. I just had to pay the price, and I was willing. Adopting this mindset has not only enabled me to achieve bigger goals that I thought I would, but it also has enabled me to appreciate the difficult times.
When I’m deep in the trenches of bringing a project to completion, or when I face setbacks and unexpected detours, I remember that times of pressure will forge a better, stronger, and smarter character within me.
It’s when we under pressure and stress that we get to see what we are really made of. You have to accept that you have to work hard to achieve your dreams and live your goals.
That is the true secret to an easy life.
