it seems, from all the stories and journeys I have listened to, read, or followed on social media, that true success only comes following a tremendous deal of suffering. it appears that it is only after emerging out the other side of a truly terrible situation or season that people have anything of value to say, or that people finally discover what it is they want to offer others. as someone whose life has been filled with blessings and has lacked extreme suffering, i have wondered a lot lately if suffering somehow imbues certain motivated and committed individuals with an ability to push through the hard times (self-imposed, coincidental, or otherwise) and come out the other side better than before. like, some how, this suffering was a piece integrated into their cosmic plan and they wouldn’t be as happy, successful, or impactful now if they hadn’t gone though a terrible time of some sort. i just finished watching a gary vee video (linked here) and over the course of half an hour, his main point was that if you want to make things happen you have to put your head down and really work - truly do nothing but work - for a minimum of four years. no bullshit. and honestly, no fun or joy (he admits this). but if you’ve put in the time, you’ll get there. what won’t get you there is comparison, day-dreaming, and self-doubt (ie falling down a youtube or instagram rabbit hole as we are all prone to do now and then). if you’ve never seen gary vee, he is a force to be reckoned with. he is high-energy, completely real, smart, and driven. in his video, there was something else he said that struck me. he says that he loves the process of working toward something. most of us just want to get to the ideal end goal, and to be honest i am starting to realize how lazy that is. if we want the end goal but can’t bear to consider the process, then we have some serious self-analyzation to do before we start any endeavor at all. i have learned firsthand through our blog (which is now a year-and-a-half along) that it is only by going through the process which allows you to define your end goal. i spoke in an earlier post about how often i feel like i am shooting for a moving target. and maybe, instead of letting that idea dissuade or depress me, I should let it excite me. I should let it imbue me with a sense of playful joy at the prospect that the universe is just having some fun with me. or maybe, it’s more that the universe is giving me time because i am not yet prepared to be where i will ultimately end up. if i was plopped in my future tomorrow, my endeavor might just fail because i don’t yet know enough to succeed. what i learned from this gary vee video is that this unhappiness - what i call the mediocre middle - is completely natural. that you will be grinding. and that, to a lot of people, that could be considered really not fun and a terrible way to spend a few years of your life. but, if you really believe in your plans, and in yourself, that grind will be so worth it. it requires patience in the long haul, but hard and fast work on the daily. so maybe it’s not so much about avoiding the unhappiness, but embracing it. that said, i am not completely sure how to do this. but i do think the key is a mindset shift. it might not be an embrace, but i think an acceptance of the situation is required - because acceptance will cease the internal fight that i feel more often than not these days. it’s a soft and subtle understanding that i am making the best of my right now, in hopes for something truly incredible further down the line. if this resonates with you somehow, I would love to hear about your experience in the comments below. i will definitely write about this more as i learn and experience more.
