Accomplishment, love, real relationships, meaning, and purpose all have a single thing in common; they take time to develop. They cannot be fulfilled or felt instantly.
We’re set up to expect things instantly.
Want to watch a movie? Hop on Netflix and get one. There’s no such thing as ‘movie times’ or having to drive to the video store anymore.
Want affirmation that you’re liked? Send someone a text and wait for them to respond. Or better yet, send a bunch of people texts and have them all respond.
Want a date? Hop on an app and get one. No need to go through the excruciating embarrassment of asking a lady out that may say ‘no’, an act that’s been a rite of passage for millennia.
Hungry? No need to go out in nature and kill it yourself. Simply pull up to a drive through window and order the flavour of the day.
There’s very little in our lives that we can’t get instantly, except, of course, the things that really matter.
Want real, deep, meaningful love? Relationships take a lot of time and effort. Building a family is a tough thing to do. You can’t create real relationships without putting a good deal of time and effort into building them.
Want purpose and meaning? You can’t quit every job you have within 2 years because you don’t feel you’re ‘making an impact’. Impacts take decades! Your earning years are supposed to come in your 40’s and 50’s. Your learning years are all of the years before those.
If, however, you expect to earn big in your 40’s and 50’s, you’d better choose your job wisely and then stick to it. Jumping from job to job in search of ‘meaning’ isn’t how it works. Meaning is something you create by giving value to others and by getting really, really good at what you do.
The craft is almost irrelevant, whatever it is, whatever career finds you, become exceptional at it.
This stuff is easy to write down. It’s even easier to nod in agreement to what’s written. To actually comprehend and carry out the persistence and grit that the real, deep, meaningful things in life demand takes guts and grit.
When most people quit, you have to persist.
When most people are buying things they don’t need simply to fit in or to impress people they have no business trying to impress, you have to save and invest.
When most people are bragging on social media about how great their life is, you have to remain level-headed enough to understand that this is a complete lie, and then plod along in an attempt to try and figure it all out in your own way.
While your pals are swiping right or left you have to get uncomfortable and go up to a lady and start a conversation.
This stuff, meaning, purpose, and love, doesn’t come easy, nor does it come immediate.
You have to understand that, or else you’ll merely exist in avoidance of the things that really matter in life.
Take this moment, if you’re this far along, to demand more of yourself, to commit to living a tougher, grittier way of life that takes reality into the equation.
Work hard. Work long hours. Get uncomfortable. And do it for decades. If you do you’ll be one of the few in your generation that actually experiences this wonderful thing called life that so many seem to be avoiding.
