There is an age old adage, "You must suffer to succeed" which was taken to the next level with the phrase "The more you suffer, the more you succeed." While this particular reference was in regard to sports, it is easily applicable to so many areas of our lives. Well, perhaps just my life, where I tend to over indulge in the things I find pleasurable and forget to manage the things that keep the wheels on this crazy bus.
How do you choose to suffer?
How do you set aside those easy things and choose the harder path, strewn with the rubble of those who didn't reach their mountain top? Knowing that there is hard going ahead do you grant your every whim until the starting gun? Do you start small and conquer mole hills before mountains? Do you do the odious tasks first, then get to the ones that seem less awful? In my ever so limited experience, I don't believe it matters HOW, just that you do choose.
We suffer to succeed, because we want more than we are. As parents have said since the first protozoa left for Single Celled Organism University- "we want more for you." It is the nature of the evolving human to desire the best of and for themselves. The truly enlightened seek it spiritually. Perhaps someday I will travel to the Zen Mountain Range and make that particular journey, at present I am seeking more temporal rewards - greater strength, longer throws, better household management, more well trained animals etc.
Am I prepared to suffer to get what I want? Willing to set aside my desire for the perfect pair of heels that looks just like five other pairs in my closet so I can pay off more of my never ending student loan debt? Willing to get up before the sun to sweat it out in the gym? Willing to forgo whatever television show I am currently obsessed with to do tedious chores that never seem to stay done? Willing to suffer to succeed? Most days the answer is yes.
On the days when I run far enough to catch a runner's high, or we all fall exhausted on the mats in the Junkyard, or when Tukko and Remi (my beloved beast hounds) actually sit and shake before coming in the door, or when debts disappear off the monthly roster, the suffering is worth it.
How do you choose to suffer? How can you not, when you want to succeed?
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