House Plants, Stamps, And Thumb Wrestling
5 easy ways to keep your house plants alive. 7 easy steps to organize your stamp collection. 3 exercises to increase your thumb wrestling skills. It seems like we are always looking for easier and easier ways to make life, well, easier. This is not a bad way to go about improving those all important skills. But the abilities in life which will actual benefit you are not going to be captured in any number of easy steps. These things take just take hard work, and are worth every bit of it.
At The Corner Of Growth
Having a mindset on the idea of growth is pivotal in the continual process of bettering yourself. Growth is the destination at which we look in the rear view mirror at those things which once were annoying roadblocks in our lives. And growth is the only way in which we are able to reach these characteristics in life which better our lives. Yet growth is only frustratingly found at the corner of hard work and persistence. This is simply where growth has set up shop, and there are no easy shortcuts to get there.
You Do Not Wake Up A Winner
As everyone would assume, the fighter does not wake up a winner. The choice is made to train daily with a menu of many rigorous exercises, to prepare for his title fight. Similarly in life, the easy moments are appealing but never lead to a better life. Only by traversing through hardship and learning in our struggles, are we able to overcome greater and greater things. It is a simple and rewarding concept full of discomfort and hard times. Comfortable ideas never spur on change despite the level of genius, and you will never find “easy” in the formula for growth.
The Small Fights
To overcome the greater difficulties in life, we must use the lesser ones to prepare. Every day we are faced with opportunities to grow ever so slightly into our greater selves, or to shrink the same amount. It is not a matter of when these situations will be encountered, but how we will respond.
We are faced with the choice of using these situations for the better or worse. With your focus on growth in these moments, you can use them to refine your life. These situations are the minute occurrences which pass by with little to no though. But each one of these can be used as our path to overcome our lesser selves. To utilize each one of these moments, we must be looking for them in every moment that we face.
Traffic Jam Momentum
A common example is the patience which can be cultivated during the molasses like speed of the rush hour traffic jams, as you are urged to start honking your car’s horn. Or in the checkout line when the person in front of you must have brought stuff from another store to be able to purchase that many items. These are the moments where you can define yourself just a tiny bit more.
Remember to smile even though your coffee has lost its war with the floor. I’ve heard that some places have free refills. If you want to be friendlier, then put on a real smile when you say thank you to the cashier in the checkout line. Or you can start your day off right in becoming more disciplined first thing in the morning, by waking up to your alarm clock’s 1st declaration instead of the 6th (someday I will win this war with my alarm clock).
The Title Bouts
Of course, life is not made up of only small moments. These are only small cases where we can make growing decisions, instead of just reacting. You will find that as the rounds goes on, life starts fighting a little dirtier. And when you face the toughest times in life, you can remember the little knockouts which brought you to this point.
Choosing to embrace the hard moments will actually make future obstacles easier to overcome. It is not the obstacle which has lessened, but the traveler which has toughened. Remember to try and learn from those hard circumstances in life, you will need the experience later on.
Its A Daily Fight
Throughout the day, look for opportunities of growth in every situation. Having a mindset of growth will help improve your perspective on life and teach you to enjoy those little nuisances that are unavoidable. As you learn to grow in one area, it becomes easier to grow in others. As more and more small battles are won, you’ll become more prepared for when life throws an unexpected uppercut at you. Life is going to come at you if your ready or not. It is up to you to make the hard decisions, instead of looking for 5 easy ways to avoid whats been thrown your way. Life was never meant to be easy, but in seeking out growth you will find that it is easier to live the hard way.
Life, keep it simple and live it
Josh