The hard work of development or the hard consequences of ignorance?
Choose your hard! Don't let it choose you.
[#35]
Life is unfair!
Life is hard!
Life is full of challenges!
Life is this, and life is that.
You know that the only easy thing is to go on and on about how hard you have it.
How problems never cease to exist, and how there’s always something left to do…
There’s barely any contentment, and hardly any peace.
What then should be the aim of life?
What should you strive towards?
What is actually worth aspiring for?
An extremely vague and subjective topic. We all have our own circumstances and priorities, and mindsets and values that define our characters and differences.
However, one thing that is common among all of us is, making a choice.
A choice between binge-eating and brisk-walking.
A choice between Netflixing and Reading.
A choice between learning and wasting.
A choice between moving and staying still.
How do you decide what to do?
What defines your next step?
My experience has taught me one simple yet crucial thing -
In life, you can’t stay still.
You can’t maintain the status quo.
You’re either moving forward, or falling behind.
Always.
Here’s an example.
Suppose you start working out regularly.
You have a defined set of exercises that you perform religiously.
You also take care of your nutrition to ensure you consume some amount of protein daily.
However, your priority is maintenance.
You wish to maintain your current stats - The weight, the BMI, the strength, the muscles, the stamina, etc.
Put it simply - You don’t want to grow physically.
You like how you are, and simply wish to continue it.
Sounds good and doable too, right?
Now consider this.
By working out regularly, you stay fit and flexible.
However, because you only wish to maintain it, you don’t pay attention to the changing demands of your body, or the environment.
With age, you start needing nutrients in higher quantities.
The metabolism rate fluctuates.
Your responsibilities change, with kids and a larger workload.
Maybe you start sitting for longer hours, or drive to distant locations regularly.
Or you take trips to different states that messes with your schedule and food.
You just never know what might come up.
And consequently, nothing stays the same, no matter how hard you try.
A related quote that I can recall is “What you don’t use, you lose.’
If you don’t read much, you slowly lose interest and the ability to skim and scan.
If you don’t eat good food periodically, your body starts craving for junk.
If you don’t listen patiently, you tend to ignore things that matter.
And again, nothing stays the same.
This is also why they say ‘Don’t rest on your laurels’, because the person you were even a month ago can’t be found now.
You’ve either improved in some aspects, or deteriorated in some.
But nothing is the same.
Which brings us back to the title - ‘The hard work of development or the hard consequences of ignorance?’
You choose.
But choose wisely!
See you next week!