A Stoic Mantra

I was watching a Tim Ferris “Fear Setting” Ted talk where he closed with a Mantra from his friend Jerry Gregorek.

Easy choices, hard life.

Hard life, easy choices.

This caused me to reflect and inspired a new mantra.

Be comfortable being uncomfortable.

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A favorite movie of mine was Trouble with the Curve. It had a back theme about a minor league baseball phenom who was thought to be a lock as a big league star. His problem when he made it to the majors is he couldn’t hit a big league curve. He never learned to do it in the minors because he never had to. He was too comfortable just hitting fastballs over the fence. That movie title always stayed with me as a metaphor for life.

Out of discomfort can be learning and growth.

I have always been a predictable person and wore that trait as a badge. With me, you get what you see. In that, I like knowing things and understanding things. And if I did not I tended to cast them aside. I have not necessarily taken the easy path but I have taken the conservative, reliable, and predictable path.

It’s never to early to learn.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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