They want the life but not the work… #282

Something that I try to remind myself of constantly, is what my long time friend and mentor has stated in so simple an utterance, “everything is hard”. The significance of this understanding can hardly be overstated as it is the bedrock of our ability to survive. Years ago, life was hard, and it still is, albeit the different and highly comfortable lifestyle that the 21st century provided. Especially to those of us living in a first world which, you might have already concluded, is the result of an incomprehensible amount of work by the men and women before us. For just a moment, consider how much had to happen for those who are currently destitute to have a far greater opportunity than your average citizen of the 1400’s when sewage and waste were not an exact science, winters wiped out entire villages, people frequently ate rotten food, alcohol was more abundant than water.. Oh and they often starved or were starving, due to famine or the absence of altruism when it came to the rulers of the land. That is of course if you were not one of the elite society and had a tenuous grasp of basic reading or writing skills. In the dark ages, people couldn’t read maps, nor was there a network of navigation, it was common to walk too far and get lost and never return home. Why is this relevant? Because I believe that by an attempt to fathom the difficulty the human race has endured, we might approach our lives with more gratitude and humility. Why does that matter? Because it is hard to be grateful and humble, and by doing so you might start to see opportunities in front of you rather than tasks that are beneath you. It brings me great amusement thinking of the Seinfeld episode where, Jerry describes the people who would be successful if they spent their energy “trying not to work” on actually working.

Why are we not all healthy, beautiful, rich and dangerous? Because it is hard. Want to master your health and vitality? It is hard. Become a millionaire? Hard. Become a champion in your sport? Hard. Create such delicious meals that people will pay you for it. Painstakingly hard. Create beautiful works of art? So hard you will probably quit. In fact, I would go as far as to wager that the level of difficulty accompanying most worthwhile endeavors escapes our immediate understanding. For most of us anyway. Don’t believe me? Try making a pencil on your own.

Why my pessimistic view of the world? Simple. Appreciation. Or lack thereof. In my humble estimation, we would be more successful and have a better mental make up for getting things done by understanding the difficulty that lies in each task. At the very least, we might even appreciate our brothers and sisters more and show them more gratitude, or so I make up. The aforementioned friend and mentor of mine has also shown me how “the scale of human activity is incomprehensible”. Try looking up a chart of all the airline flights that take place in a day, the maritime charts, and then imagine all the infrastructure and things that need to occur for the majority of flights to arrive and depart on time, shipping crates to arrive and get to the stores on time, your Amazon package to arrive at your doorstep tomorrow. It really is mind-boggling. Such accomplishments were achieved at scale by humans with the same biological makeup as you and I who willed something incredible into existence through decades of work. Out of nothing I might add.

Most of you are familiar with the “10,000 hours concept” even if you haven’t come across Malcom Gladwell’s book Outliers. There is certainly more to it than just 10,000 hours by itself as you will find in the book but nonetheless, fundamentally we seem to know that things take time. No one expects to graduate medical school in a year or get their doctorate in the same timeframe. Yet, we want that 30 day six pack we saw in the commercial “while drinking and eating all your favorite foods”. How can this be? Or maybe the question as Simon Sinek frames it, is really “why?”. Why do we expect that after reading a book we’re ready to open a business and start raking in the profits within the first year? Or that after a couple sessions at the gym, our body is starting to change. Michelangelo’s David and the Sistine Chapel each took a few years to complete with Michelangelo slaving away every day. Why would our attempts at success rival some of the most iconic works of history? Well, the truth is, they don’t. Particularly if our consistency and effort doesn’t match.

So what is there to gain by acceptance of the reality of difficulty that is life? If I told you to run a mile but it was really ten, undoubtedly most people would give up before they reached the tenth mile. However if I told you to run ten when it was really a one mile lap, you would finish it easily. By understanding how challenging things really are, you can mentally equip yourself to achieve success rather than blindly assuming it “will just happen”. It would be nice for things to come easily but that’s just not the way it works.

Chances are it will lead to a greater deal of honesty with yourself and consequently the people around you. It is easy to say you want to be a champion, or want success, doing it is another thing altogether. If you have accepted that success at the elite level is a standard that escapes 99% of people, you are now faced with the decision of living your life like a normal person, which is nothing at all to be ashamed of, or going above and beyond everyone around you all the time. It is really as simple as that. You can choose to lie to yourself and others, telling yourself you’re going to achieve fame and wealth and all that, but deep down you know your work doesn’t match the talk. You will know the work it will take to achieve success when you arrive there. When you hit pause and see the trophies, the houses, the cars, the jet, you will know what it took. Till then it’s all made up, and if you think it’s easy ask yourself why everyone isn’t driving a chopped off Bentley or getting a seven figure contract for playing their sport. Because everything is hard. You want to be different? Then be the hardest worker you know.