I have a friend. Let’s call him Dick. He’s a challenge. But then so am I. But the thing is, the more he’s a challenge, the more I love him. I have to struggle at times to hold his energy, to ride his emotions, to apologise to the waiters that he’s rude to. But the fact that I struggle happily for him firms my love for him.
I read this rant on how we often ask the wrong question of ourselves in our pursuit of fulfilment. We ask “what makes me happy?”, rather than “what pain do I want in my life?”. The former rarely brings us closer to what we truly want. The latter gets us far realer. It gets us aware of what we’re willing to put up with to get what we really want. Because we’ll always have to put up with something. In fact, as the author writes, happiness requires struggle.
I have a loved one. Let’s call him FB. We struggle. But I know that we are both struggling to get to a better place, to understand each other better, and this makes me love him more. Every time we recover from a wobbly moment, I’m happy. Because we both put in the good fight. We know we’re growing and we know it hurts and we know we have to express all this to be able get to the good stuff – the softness, the care, the mutual understanding of each other’s values.
As the another author writes, “Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to struggle for.”
Word.
What struggle do you want in YOUR life?