Posts Tagged ‘Life’s not easy’
I thought life was supposed to be easy?
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009This is one of my favorite videos [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Pw6j80o3A]
Com’on you know you’ve wished that life was that easy before. Some of you have probably felt like you had periods in your life when it was that easy.
A friend of mine, Dan Gardner, told me a quote that he liked the other day from M. Scott Peck. Although the original quote is a lot more psychologist sounding, here is basically what he said, ”The root of all mental illness (depression, anxiety, etc.) is the thought, that life is supposed to be easy.” Wow, that one hit me pretty hard. I started thinking about all the times that I’ve felt sad, or depressed, or had anxiety, or over egotistical. The first thing I thought of course was that whenever I felt like that, my focus was totally on ME. But the underlying thought of the whole circumstance was, “my life should be easier than this. I’m a good person, why do I have to struggle LIKE THIS.” I guess I just thought that life was supposed to be easy….
Wow, how often do we catch the underlying thoughts of our feelings. When I was a Senior in High School, I wrote in my year book. “No matter how hard you work or how tired you are, know that there is someone else out there, who has worked just as hard, who is just as tired, yet still pushes on.” What great advice for me later in my life! Someone else is going to come across that same difficulty, and they are going to push through anyway, and they will be living their goals and dreams. How about you?
Another thing I noticed with people who have effective relationships, marked by having people around them with high levels of performance and productivity, is that they are not always very “nice.” They always seem to be in the hunt for something. Quite frankly if you are not helping them catch the thing they are hunting, you are in the way, and many times, they will not hesitate to tell you that. And I always thought, “highly successful people are jerks!” The truth is, they know life is not supposed to be easy, and they aren’t afraid to make you experience that. They know that they’ve had to go through some very hard time to get to where they are, and will ensure that everyone they spend time with, is willing to go through tough times as well. Success is ALWAYS on the other side of inconvenience and adversity.
This doesn’t mean go out and be a jerk to everyone now. But what it does mean is, think about the effectiveness of your time and your relationships. Are the people around you there for a great easy social life, or are they constantly pushing you, to get the best out of you? Find people that will push you to your highest performance levels, people that will join you in the hunt, and hold you accountable if you start to wander away! These will be the most fulfilling relationships of your life.
Develop your HUNGER, develop your Attitude – Look for the places in your life that are not easy, and charge at them full steam ahead! Because there are others who will back down!
I’ll see you on the other side of adversity!
Thank you Dan Gardner, M. Scott Peck and Youtube!
