Are You Choosing to Suffer Rather than Win?

Of all the questioning I do of the world…

I question myself even more.

Is the path I’ve chosen the right one?

Am I wasting my time?

If there’s something I could love more or be better at, how will I find it if I’m doing this?

Will I become so different that I become unattractive?

Will I try so hard at this that I forget how to love?

Am I strong enough to keep writing when I quit my day job?

Is chasing a dream my excuse to ignore people, places, and experiences?

If I continue to strip away everything I identify with, will there still be something whole to build upon?

It’s amazing how paradoxical it is to be our own worst critic, judge, and attacker when it’s the last thing we would want for anyone else.

So, what does it mean?

Knowing doesn’t automatically mean following through

I’ve learned so many things about how to think, how our minds stop us, when and when not to trust our minds and our hearts, and our personal dissolution of reality when our pasts pin us down and scold us for trying to be something great.

I’ve learned things that I remind myself of every day when I get tired; every time I have to choose between comfortable and uncomfortable.

And most times?

I fail.

Even knowing what I know, I can somehow minimize my own power and excuse my own advice. Even when I’m insanely self-aware, I can still believe my own lies.

But every once in a while, I win.

And I win enough to keep pushing the needle.

Do you know all those motivational speeches on YouTube and Spotify?

I’ve listened to so many of them, I know ninety percent of the voices speaking from every clip and can almost recite every word they speak with the same tone and intensity.

Yeah, I’m that guy.

But, when I didn’t have a voice of my own, when the voices in my head told me to quit, to be ashamed, to never expect good things, and to end my life, these were the voices that changed my psyche.

It used to be impossible for me to be on my own.

I was betrayed and beaten by some devil inside my head.

I got depressed quickly. I was incapable of keeping myself stable.

It was as if the deafening noises of the world, the extreme sports, the sexual lust, and the constant occupation of my time were the only things muffling the voice; the one waiting only for silence to pull me back into darkness.

It was the voices on repeat coming from my mentor’s speeches and recordings that dissolved the hate for myself and the disbelief I had of being lovable and valuable.

The lesson?

Sometimes growing comes in ways we never expect or may not even think is normal.

But, I’ll never regret the thousands of repeated hours, every day on every job site, that kept me going.

Even when I had no idea where I was going.

Endure something enough, and something has to break

I had an epiphany the other day.

What if I’m choosing to suffer?

What if suffering itself is attractive just because it’s what we know?

What if finding our traumas and becoming aware of our flaws helps us tighten our grip on our suffering so that we have something to blame? So we can stand back from ourselves and say, ‘See? I knew there was a reason I was fucked up.’

I knew my absent father made it impossible for me to gain confidence and stand up for myself.

I knew my savior of a mother made it impossible for me to detach and too easy for me to have a safe space to return to when I got scared.

I knew the beatings from my stepfather made me scared of all men.

I knew the taunting from my peers made it impossible for me to trust anyone’s sincerity.

I knew being cheated on made me build walls to never be vulnerable again.

I’ve learned so much that now I know when I’m doing it wrong. I know when I’m cowering, when I’m not pushing myself, and when I’m not believing in myself.

So, what is it?

The one thing stronger than suffering.

We’re choosing this.

Day to day when nothing changes, when the monotonous sameness that the world has expected us to live out and we’re just told is ‘life’, we give ourselves the excuse to blame how flawed we are.

How incapable we are.

How behind we are.

How slow or manic we are.

How emotionally confused we are.

How fucked up we are.

Because it keeps us comfortable. Even if we hate it. Even if the suffering hurts so badly we can’t think about anything else except to run from it.

Because it means that we get to stay small.

It means we get to play with talent, but never really commit to it in a way that will scare the fuck out of us.

It means we get to stay one step away from fear because fiery resentment and frustration are just a little less insufferable.

It means that if we never truly give ourselves to something, then we can keep pondering on if it’s right for us and never truly have to make moves on it.

IT MEANS that we are very much choosing to suffer rather than seeing the fact that’s staring us in the face:

We’re afraid of our greatness.

We don’t know what it means.

We don’t know where it will take us.

We don’t know what it will steal from us.

We don’t know what it will force us to leave behind.

We don’t know how much comfort it will take from us.

We don’t know if we’ll ever get to come back to mediocre.

Or we do know…

And we’re playing stupid with our own lives.

We’d rather trust the lie than turn around.

All so that we don’t have to face the greatest version of ourselves.

But…

What I’m realizing as the days blend together is that we get to choose one of two things.

It’s one of the only dichotomous choices to really exist in life. There is no in-between.

We can choose to see ourselves at our best while we live, or we can choose to feel the regret of never seeing ourselves as the gods we dreamed of when we die.

…

If you’re reading this, then you too are contemplating life exhaustively. But what are you doing with it?

Are you facing it?

Are you in belief of what your life could be?

Are you willing to set aside distractions, especially the ones you use to slow yourself?

Are you willing to stop overthinking and chase your thing?

Are you in love with yourself enough to choose fear and greatness?

Are you choosing to suffer?

Because you don’t have to…

Truth and Love Reader.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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