There’s what we hope it will happen.
There’s what we hope it won’t happen.
And often we hold on to the former to get motivation, inspiration, excitement. Or we let the latter drag us down, feed our fears, control our life.
But we forget that there are also a whole lot of possible in-betweens. Situations that do not match the one or the other perfectly, and are a mix of positive and negative.
That’s what we need to accept.
Life is in the middle.
Stick with something long enough and it will change you.
Stick with something you have chosen, something that is difficult, something that is inspiring, something you would not normally do, something that you had wanted to do for a long time. And it will become a passion, a second nature, an habit.
Stick with something long enough and it will save you.
We constantly think at what is missing, the part of the journey we have not completed yet, what others have that we do not, the emptiness that we need to fill.
And by doing that we fail to notice the kind gesture, the moment of joy, the hand that’s being extended to us, the gratitude of our neighbour, the fullness that we don’t want to empty.
That’s how it goes.
It is much easier to digest a failure if you don’t look at it as the opposite of a specific success, but rather as the necessary step towards some success.
Even when it takes you far away from your goal, even when it is repeated in time, even when it looks like you are just not going to make it, failure is always capable of revealing some truth.
Sometimes it’s harsh – e.g., “this is not for you” -, but it is never definitive – e.g., “nothing is for you”.
Everyone wants to be liked. But there is a different between striving to be liked in the moment and striving to be liked in the end.
To be liked in the moment means that you are betting on your capacity to escape immediate evaluation. It’s about being erratic, leveraging every situation, and since people talk, caring about short-term benefit.
To be liked in the end means that you are betting on the capacity of people to judge by themselves. It’s about consistency, authenticity, and long term.
So, the choice is not really between wanting to be liked and not wanting to be liked.
It’s a choice between now and forever.
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