Life is difficult — From Father, To Kid

"Life is difficult and complicated and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes."

J. K. Rowling

Life is difficult. Why is this so important to learn? Because while I truly believe that anything is possible and we can do and be anything we want in life, rarely is it easy to make our dreams come true. Rarely are the things that we want most in life easy – and they shouldn't be. The reason that some of our greatest accomplishments are our greatest accomplishments isn’t always because of what we actually accomplished, but knowing the blood, sweat and tears that it took to achieve. My greatest accomplishments are simply the exclamation point at the end of a sentence, rarely the sentence itself.

Why is life so difficult? Because life provides you with a plethora of excuses. Excuses that can provide you with an “okay” life with little to no work needed to accomplish. The problem is that sometimes that isn’t enough – sometimes we want extraordinary. But to accomplish the extraordinary, we might fight, we must grind, and we must stay persistent - and it is taxing.

About 3 years ago, I decided that I could become fit, but I decided the only way I could do it is by taking certain life style changes to make that happen. What I realized is that some people are blessed with the ability to stay skinny on a normal basis, and for most of my life I secretly hated those people. “That person can eat whatever they want, never go to the gym, and they look great? Life is so unfair.” Well you know what I realized? That was an excuse. I used my genes, my body type, my eating habits, my knee, my asthma, anything to tell myself that I should settle for knowing that there were reasons why I was the way I was, and that there were too many things holding me back from ever accomplishing what I wanted.

You know what I said to that? “Fuck that. I am going to make this happen, and I am not going to let any excuse get in my way.” I decided that life can go ahead and be difficult and I am going to accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish anyway. If it required me to put in ten times the effort than other people, then I will face that head on.

I started going to the gym consistently; I started eating healthy; I started running and I did not let anything become an excuse. I threw away free desserts on a daily basis (thanks advertising industry), I walked to the gym in the rain and in negative degree weather, I asked for salads at steak houses, and I changed my life. And you know what? I don't regret one second of it, and I am happy I made those decisions. Because while some might think it is extreme, it is actually only what it took for me to get in shape. Life is tough, and maybe I have to give things up and put in more effort than others do in order to accomplish the same thing, but you know what? I still accomplish it.

And I did exactly that. I lost over 50 pounds, I felt better than I had ever felt in my entire life and I accomplished more than I ever thought I could.

And then what happened? While playing basketball later that year, I busted my knee, legitimately. And what did I do? I let that become an excuse. And once I accepted one excuse, I started accepting more. And one year later, I am back to where I was before I even started my lifestyle change. And yes my knee is terrible, but I could have road a bike, I could have used an elliptical, I could have done one of hundreds of things to stay in shape. But I didn’t because “I love running, and if I can’t run, then there is no way I can keep myself in shape.” And yes, I would love to run again, but seriously, I let that be my excuse for not working out at all? Well I promise that that is no longer going to be the case. I promise that I will get back to where I want to be – and hopefully remember this experience so I don’t have to experience it again. And truthfully, it will likely require you to go through something similar to completely understand this, but I hope that when that day comes, this validates those feelings, and unlike your old man, I hope you don't have to learn it twice.

This is just one example of life being difficult, but only one of many. There are so many things that I have struggled with in my life. The thing is, when I embrace that struggle, when I embrace the obstacles that are in front of me, it not only makes it that much sweeter when I accomplish what I want, but more often than not, embracing those obstacles is why I accomplished what I did.

Yes life is difficult, yes life is unfair, but you have a choice: you can strive to be as happy as you possibly can, or you can settle for less. You can give in to excuses and become someone that you don't want to be or you can decide that it is time to put your life in your own hands. There is always going to be someone smarter, faster, stronger, and better experienced than you in different areas of your life, but how does that effect your ability to become better at anything and everything? It doesn't. The only person stopping you from the amazing is you.