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Most things won't be as easy as you think
Saturday, 11 August 2007
You know what really upsets me? When things don't turn out the way my optimistic side expects them to. When the girl I thought liked me just wants to be friends, when the job I thought I had in the bag goes to someone else, and when that cool party I was planning flops.
We're strange creatures us humans. We're full of hopes and dreams, yet reality has a nasty habit of disappointing us. Indeed, most things I get into turn out to be a lot more difficult than I initially expect.
So why bother? You may ask. Good question.
To which I answer, because even if the cost of the reward is higher than I initially expect, usually the reward still turns out to be worth it.
When I was at school, I thought becoming successful in the adult world would be easy. I was a smart guy. I'd just start a highly profitable business ... or something. Then I started working and found even dealing with a badly-paid low-responsibility job was a lot harder than I expected. A challenge I thought would be small in fact loomed over me like some unscalable mountain.
But I stayed optimistic despite all the difficulties. I circled that mountain, walked up dead-end trails, and listened to other travellers. Eventually, I found my was up to a place where I was making good money in a job I enjoyed.
Adult relationships were another area I thought would be easy. I'd just get into high-school and magically an attractive girlfriend would appear in my arms.
Boy was I wrong. Like everyone else, I found out that male-female relationships are extremely difficult. And finding someone you're attracted to who's also into you isn't easy.
But I kept plugging away and eventually, satisfying relationships came along.
And don't think this disconnect between how hard I think things are and how hard they turn out to be has ended with age. All the time, I still have a tendency to under-estimate the difficulties I'll face when entering a new field.
The real-world is a difficult place, and getting even a small amount of what you want can take incredible effort. But if you just keep plugging away, you'll usually receive some satisfaction.
And there's another hidden reward among all these difficulties. Not easily achieving your goals may be frustrating. It may make hot tears stream from your eyes and anguished cries emerge from your mouth. But through it all, you become a better and stronger person. You learn that you're actually a lot tougher than you expected to be. With work, your competency increases, and with it your self-belief.
And maybe that's the reason why the world always insists on being so darn hard all the time.
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