73. Voluntary suffering

it just makes sense.

Today I am amid a running challenge of 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours.

Some would ask what is the point? Why would you do that to yourself? That’s surely too extreme?

Yet, to me, it is something I am excited about and feel grateful I can do.

One of the most interesting quotes I stumbled upon recently was by Naval Ravikant:

“If you want an easy life, do hard things. If you want a hard life, do easy things.”

To me, this speaks volumes.

It is the delayed gratification, the hardship, the voluntary suffering- that curate the person able to have a good life.

We often think we can cheat the grind with ‘the top 10 ways to’ guides and tips- yet, in reality for most things in life we know what we must do and it often just involves sitting down and doing the hard things.

“If pain comes first, pleasure follows. If pleasure comes first, pain follows.” - Naval Ravikant

The thing is we are hardwired to want the easy things.

We see it all around us.

David Hieatt suggests that our two biggest hindrances are: Dopamine + Impatience.

This is due to the fact that anything of real value requires hardship and long term commitment- the very thing dopamine and impatience discourage us against.

When we decide to commit something we recognise the struggle and how it will be boring but there must be a shift to fall in love with the small incremental improvements. No more big wow moment, but just turning up.

Life becomes quite simple- but we must stay committed.

“Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.” - Jim Rohn

So back to my running saga- I’ve realised that choosing to simply stick to the task at hand is a great gift.

From the outside I am seemingly doing the exact same thing, running again and again seeing no visible differences, arguably there is no point.

Yet, I am getting fitter, growing in my pain tolerance, and getting comfortable with uncomfortable.

Mundane voluntary suffering often doesn’t make sense when we have an abundance of comfortable options- but it is the road to making a difference.

72. Career identity

Our work can sometimes assume our identity but there’s a bit of a problem with that.

Have you ever been

At a party, family gathering, or social event,

And the inevitable question of ‘what do you do for work?’ has been thrown onto you.

Yes of course it has.

Especially in Western culture, we tend to lean towards easy surface-level questions and ultimately, for most people, work takes up the entirety of their lives. We can get very engrossed in the idea that our job is more important than it is. Justifications for sacrifices we make because we make it our identity.

We believe we have to subscribe to a certain set of kind of rules and boundaries over our life.

You’re in a high-end accounting role, you must work 70 hours a week or you are made to feel useless- why?

You’re a minimum wage worker, you must just put your head down and not speak- why?

You're creative, so you must always have lots of ideas- why?

When we acknowledge our jobs, their blueprints, and, parameters they put on us, and yet still accept them- we become clones.

There is another way though.

We must know that we can shift our mindset from career identity to understand that jobs are just a small aspect of who we are as people.

Even even though they provide us with money, take up a lot of our time, and stress us out; they don’t make up our being.

As individuals, we are brilliantly unique; with hobbies, passions and the capacity for lots of ambition (both in work and out)- that is rare to be commonplace in its entirety in a career setting. We mustn’t allow for work to be all we do- or be.

When we accept this truth we can actually do work better, we are no longer a slave to its regime.

This doesn’t give us the excuse to do what we like and get mad at our boss, rather the opposite.

As work does not make up who we are we shouldn't feel the pressure when inevitable stress does arrive. Additionally, we can bring our unique, callings and giftings that have been developed with the rest of our time into work and help the people we do work with.

We are not subscribing to a certain way of living just because our work calls us to. We are putting a new flair to it.

The calling is to be confident in our identity, unshakeable when inevitable issues arise, to bring our best in all areas of life and not just 9-5.

71. The two versions

We have two versions of ourselves:

- the one with the door shut

- the one with the door open

When we keep the door shut we get stuff done, we get creative, and we process things very quickly.

But there is a danger.

When the door stays shut we can overthink things, isolate ourselves, and consequently lead unhealthy lifestyles.

When we keep the door open we hear different perspectives, interact with others, and develop empathy.

But a danger lives here too.

We no longer are individuals who can be decisive. We don’t know what we would choose on our own- we are too reliant on others and therefore can’t sit down and do the work.

So what is the solution?

“Sometimes you have to disconnect in order to better connect with yourself and with the people you serve and love” - Ryan Holiday

You need to shut the door to make having the door open worthwhile.