Is Life Really Hard?

Often we measure the difficulty of our lives by the perceived obstacles and hardships we encounter. Probably the biggest lesson that I’ve learned from developing myself via meditation, stoicism, psychology and even marketing, is that the value we extract from things is mostly a matter of our perception. Not only does the $50 wine glass not have a spell cast on it to objectively make the wine taste any better, the sense that our life is in shambles because our job sucks, or we’re losing our hair or nobody likes our poetry is a story that we control. It’s not just fitness that makes things easier, but also changing the relationship we have with discomfort.

Muscle pain caused by an intense workout feels very different from the muscle pain caused by an illness. It may be that the pain is even similar, but what makes the difference is the story we tell ourselves about the pain. If we think of each rep as one step closer to our ideal physique and a healthier life, we’ll look forward to our training. What most of us do is focus on the discomfort, and wonder how long we have to suffer till we can get in shape.

Re-framing our lives is one of the most important things we can do. Whenever we blame how we feel or where we are in life on the external, we are giving up our own power and autonomy. Anything can be transformed into something useful depending on our perspective. The criticism may have some kernel of truth if only we can disentangle it from the bullying. Don’t take advice as a strange exercise in victim blaming, but as an opportunity to control your destiny.

When we show up to take accountability and learn from everything we can, the obstacle really does become the way.