The Pursuit of Hard Things

The consumption of light weight, low substance media is making us impatient. Without patience and resilience against mundane, boring things, we cannot focus and pursue difficult things.

I turned 23 today and ran 10km before work as a reminder to myself to pursue hard things.

I feel like I'm on my second mountain already. My first mountain was becoming the best tennis player I could. As I look up at the second, it's undefined and self directed, making it scarier.

But I'm trying to be more patient.

I'm writing this as an ode to myself that there's no meaning in that which comes easy. The feeling at the top is fleeting and what matters is the process of becoming. We must trust it.

I look back on my tennis journey and I'm incredibly grateful for the foundations it laid. During that time, what allowed me to operate at my best was: A clear mission, great people along for the ride and naivety of how hard it really would be.

There was structure in the pursuit of being the best tennis player - it was clear that reaching higher levels would be hard and take time.

Now on my second mountain, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit but the more content I consume on some of these social platforms, I feel like my mind is being sent to a place of mediocrity and impatience.

It's the low substance, 'light weight' content that's short circuiting my system like a fast-food drive through. Instantly gratifying but leaving my tank a little empty. I rarely eat fast food, so why would I consume it in other ways?

Don't get me wrong, a small dosage of this content is good inspiration to get us to the starting line.

But I'm increasingly finding this does not help build patience and resilience in the pursuit of hard things. It only makes it more difficult because we expect things to happen sooner than they usually do.

Contrarily, the process of creating content is actually great for development.

Why? It's also hard…

And hard things take time, require focus and are usually boring and mundane in the day to day.

Without the pursuit and focus on hard things, we produce nothing substantial and just exist. Thinking like everyone, moving like everyone, being like everyone.

Mediocrity is where the soul goes to die.

Chapter 23 lesgoo 🌮 🥷🏽