I don't think anything in life that's worth chasing comes in easy formation
It makes you struggle but I also think accepting it and fighting through it makes you different. If all you do is socialize, you will get lost in the crowd. You need to make sacrifices, like not go clubbing every night. You need to lock in. I think the real reward in life comes from putting in the effort which sounds so obvious and yet it still needs to be set as a constant reminder.
It's a matter of actually getting more and more closer to your goal but you just can't see it at that time. Think of working out. I
always used to be this like really skinny dude. I'm still not that big but I've been going to the gym for like 8 to 9 months, maybe a little longer but not as seriously and intently as now, and I've just been going there every day putting in that consistent work, eating good, really investing my time into building myself physically. I'm not the biggest person in the world but I'm getting bigger.
I couldn't see the results after a month or two and I was taking pictures and stuff and I was like oh I didn't really grow that much, like am I doing anything wrong here but then times go by 6 to 7 months and I start getting a little bit of the muscle mass and that felt great and building myself up and I started to recognize that, physically, it all came with sacrifices. I had to give up some of the things that I really liked like my favourite food. I wanted to eat ramen at times. I wanted to sit around and basically do nothing, but I just invested that time and focused and concentrated toward working myself more. I tried eating healthy to get my protein intake every day and I avoided fast food restaurants and stuff like that and then I started seeing something that resembles results. The thing is you have to put the sacrifices in to get to another goal. You can't just have everything easy. I mean I wish I had the ability to be better at playing soccer without even practicing. I wish I had the ability to just kind of learn all the other languages without trying. Sometimes I wish I could just kind of stay still and just acquire the social skills I need to get ahead without even doing anything but that's not how it works. I can't do that I need to work out I need to get myself out of my room and go to the gym and then come back and do that every single day and that's not even going to get me like the biggest man in the world. But I can't just stay still and expect my social capabilities to just materialize without doing anything. I need to get on "that bus" regardless of the irrational fears. So, you take sacrifices and if you can't make those choices then it's very difficult to get to your goal. You might not even get there ever. I think growth really happens through a struggle.
I think of Olympic athletes who all the time, every four years they go to this competition and represent their own nations and compete in the highest level possible to become number one, the number one in the world and the thing that they do when they're not in those Olympics like they go and train every day they work every day. Michael Phelps, I think I saw a video of him who was one of the best, if not the best swimmer of the whole history of the swimming competition. He just went on every day for years like there was no break and I struggle to think about how he could just do that at that point. Like he's probably just kind of engineered in that way to just wake up, go to practise every day, improve, come back home and then go the next day again and the day after. I bet he's like that and even then, he probably struggles every day because that's not an easy thing to do. The point is, it just shows that the things we want in life are not easy at all.
Up until high school I thought that life wasn't going to be that difficult. I thought I would still be taken care of under my parents' wings, be in that protective environment where I didn't really have to worry too much about real world problems but then when you do finally come out to the real world you have to make your own alarms. Your mom is not going to come into your room and wake you up and be like, "hey it's time to go to school" and do your cooking, cleaning, laundry, and everything for you. No one is going to do that for you; you have to go out there be alone, on your own, be independent and make an alarm for yourself. Some people figure it out by investing in themselves early, making bold decisions when no one else is making the similar ones. Some people actually set-up their lives in that way and that's good for them; that's really good, but a lot of the times we all struggle.
At some point (like now, for me) you realize that you're not in this movie where you're the main character and whatever you do, you just get things for free and just by being lucky by getting all the main character benefits that no other side characters have. But that's not how it really is. We just have to fight through the difficulties. Everyone has the potential, but they don't get to see it just because sometimes they fail to make those sacrifices. When you're first starting out, you're going to struggle. You're going to be challenged where you'll meet this limitation where you're like, "okay I can't do this anymore. You know, I'm putting in so much work but I'm not getting the results and I don't think there's anything that's good in me" and that's the negativity that you get because it's so difficult to overcome those challenges and those times. But that's what exactly it is supposed to be. It's supposed to be difficult. We have to have the drive to push through it.
It's a matter of actually getting more and more closer to your goal but you just can't see it at that time. Think of working out. I
always used to be this like really skinny dude. I'm still not that big but I've been going to the gym for like 8 to 9 months, maybe a little longer but not as seriously and intently as now, and I've just been going there every day putting in that consistent work, eating good, really investing my time into building myself physically. I'm not the biggest person in the world but I'm getting bigger.
I couldn't see the results after a month or two and I was taking pictures and stuff and I was like oh I didn't really grow that much, like am I doing anything wrong here but then times go by 6 to 7 months and I start getting a little bit of the muscle mass and that felt great and building myself up and I started to recognize that, physically, it all came with sacrifices. I had to give up some of the things that I really liked like my favourite food. I wanted to eat ramen at times. I wanted to sit around and basically do nothing, but I just invested that time and focused and concentrated toward working myself more. I tried eating healthy to get my protein intake every day and I avoided fast food restaurants and stuff like that and then I started seeing something that resembles results. The thing is you have to put the sacrifices in to get to another goal. You can't just have everything easy. I mean I wish I had the ability to be better at playing soccer without even practicing. I wish I had the ability to just kind of learn all the other languages without trying. Sometimes I wish I could just kind of stay still and just acquire the social skills I need to get ahead without even doing anything but that's not how it works. I can't do that I need to work out I need to get myself out of my room and go to the gym and then come back and do that every single day and that's not even going to get me like the biggest man in the world. But I can't just stay still and expect my social capabilities to just materialize without doing anything. I need to get on "that bus" regardless of the irrational fears. So, you take sacrifices and if you can't make those choices then it's very difficult to get to your goal. You might not even get there ever. I think growth really happens through a struggle.
I think of Olympic athletes who all the time, every four years they go to this competition and represent their own nations and compete in the highest level possible to become number one, the number one in the world and the thing that they do when they're not in those Olympics like they go and train every day they work every day. Michael Phelps, I think I saw a video of him who was one of the best, if not the best swimmer of the whole history of the swimming competition. He just went on every day for years like there was no break and I struggle to think about how he could just do that at that point. Like he's probably just kind of engineered in that way to just wake up, go to practise every day, improve, come back home and then go the next day again and the day after. I bet he's like that and even then, he probably struggles every day because that's not an easy thing to do. The point is, it just shows that the things we want in life are not easy at all.
Up until high school I thought that life wasn't going to be that difficult. I thought I would still be taken care of under my parents' wings, be in that protective environment where I didn't really have to worry too much about real world problems but then when you do finally come out to the real world you have to make your own alarms. Your mom is not going to come into your room and wake you up and be like, "hey it's time to go to school" and do your cooking, cleaning, laundry, and everything for you. No one is going to do that for you; you have to go out there be alone, on your own, be independent and make an alarm for yourself. Some people figure it out by investing in themselves early, making bold decisions when no one else is making the similar ones. Some people actually set-up their lives in that way and that's good for them; that's really good, but a lot of the times we all struggle.
At some point (like now, for me) you realize that you're not in this movie where you're the main character and whatever you do, you just get things for free and just by being lucky by getting all the main character benefits that no other side characters have. But that's not how it really is. We just have to fight through the difficulties. Everyone has the potential, but they don't get to see it just because sometimes they fail to make those sacrifices. When you're first starting out, you're going to struggle. You're going to be challenged where you'll meet this limitation where you're like, "okay I can't do this anymore. You know, I'm putting in so much work but I'm not getting the results and I don't think there's anything that's good in me" and that's the negativity that you get because it's so difficult to overcome those challenges and those times. But that's what exactly it is supposed to be. It's supposed to be difficult. We have to have the drive to push through it.
