Shouldn’t it be easy?
An inside look at what it feels like for me:
There are some days when I can’t get out of bed. Some days when I feel so overwhelmed, tired, and disappointed in myself that I don’t know what to do, or where to begin.
The signs I hang up and the pins I post and the words I copy? They are just reminders to myself, first and foremost. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. Most of the time. I’m just here, trying, just like anyone else.
It’s not easy. “Yoga teacher training,” for example, sounds like an indulgence when I type the letters into my social profiles, cheerily posting about heading off to practice, but the reality of practicing these twenty hours each week is a face-to-face awakening with the mindsets I live with. Each time, I struggle with being too tired, with being scared, and with confronting my “samskaras,” or the past stories and patterns of truth I’ve got imprinted on my brain. I struggle mightily with quieting my mind, and this devil of a mind drives me bat-shit crazy. A lot.
A lot.
Seriously, who writes 20,000 words a week… just to stay sane?
I write to let it out, to maintain my sanity. I’m afraid that I’ll be insane by fifty and mumbling to myself in poverty huddled in a torn jacket in the corner of the subway entrance, and that no one will see me.
None of this is easy.
Here’s the thing, though. It’s not promised to be easy. It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be weird, and there are going to be plenty of days where you’re in a puddle, confused, lost, lonely, or wondering where to go. When I left my job to begin my own company, it was hard—I had to learn (and I’m still learning) new systems, new organization patterns, new habits, how to prioritize—again and again. I had to learn how to work alone. How to be accountable.
The lessons keep coming.
The promise of “easy” is a delusion, sometimes. Is that the point, though? I don’t think any of us, if we really thought about it, said—yes, the only thing I want in this life is the easy stuff. Forget about the rest of it, I’d just like it to be easy.
No, it’s not about the easy. (There is ease, but that’s a different conversation). First, it’s about what you do when it’s not easy. It’s about realizing that even if it’s hard, it can still be beautiful, and you can still make things that matter when you’re tired, lonely, scared, depressed, or bothered.
In the words of my coach, during a particularly arduous sequence of events: “Just f-*king do it.”
“Show me you can do it no matter what.”
This is when you become better than the best. Not when circumstances are perfect. It’s when circumstances are shit and you do it anyways.
Easy?
When did someone sit down and promise you that it was supposed to be easy? Or better yet, fair? It’s not guaranteed to be easy or fair, and the people who get what they want go after it–in spite of and because of–each and every advantage or disadvantage they are thrown.
Sometimes, things are easier than you could have ever imagined–pieces fall into place, the actions a result of agreement finally locking into place in your mind.
Other times, the fight for what you want, what you desire, is harder than you’d ever imagined; it begs you to give up, to stop, to drop. You doubt your desires, you fear the pain. You quiver, you stall. Many give up–no, most give up–and say, you know what? I don’t want it as much as I thought I did. I’m not willing to fight.
But if you want it, if you really, really want it, you’ll make it, you’ll do it, you’ll fight for it.
You’ll keep going even if it’s years of pain and labor, if it’s a fight worth fighting.
You’ll give up the excuses and the hards and tireds and you’ll find a way.