Struggle is Dying
The truth is that the concept of struggling is slowly dying.
Our dating culture has been streamlined to an app, online influencers claim to build a six figure business in a matter of months, and people are obtaining mythological bodies in half the time with the aid of PEDs, all while claiming this is a natural process. This leaves me asking myself…am I doing enough?
This inauthenticity paints a skewed perception of growth and what it means to go through the process of building something.
I was comparing myself to these people and was dissatisfied with where I was, not realizing I’m competing with something that isn’t real.
So I would put on a mask, only highlighting the best parts of myself so that I seemed further along than I was, because the slow growth I was having meant something must be going wrong… right?
I always thought success was this big moment, and I was waiting for my overnight win, but then I realized something.
Success is a culmination of days of hard work. Showing up when I didn’t feel like it, or doing it while unsure. It all amounted to who I’ve become.
Although I didn’t really give myself a choice, I picked up everything and took a flight to the other side of the world, so I didn’t really have an option other than to find a way to make it work.
People usually only see the end result and not the endless days of effort, and then call the result of that hard work luck. The burnout, the frustration, the failed attempts all contribute to actually achieving results.
Success wasn’t this big explosive moment for me, but in actuality it was the quiet wins. It was waking up one day and realizing I’m living halfway across the world from where I grew up.
The success is that I’m here now, almost two years later, living on my own terms and being able to help people.
The feeling that I get when people reach out to me saying my content helped them, or inspired them, it’s unmatched.
There’s this quote from Theodore Roosevelt that I absolutely love.
"Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.”
Struggle is such an integral part of the human experience, the rush and perspective you get after repeatedly facing a challenge and then finally overcoming it is an indescribable high.
Writing, creating content on YouTube and building my own business have all been meaningful challenges to me and what I discovered after I left my old life behind is that I love to struggle, but only if it’s towards something meaningful.
Back when I was working a 9-5, I was helping someone build their dream, my only motivation at the time was a paycheck and not feeling like a bum.
Deep down I knew I wasn’t made for a typical “job”, but I feared the thought of struggling financially so much that I put any ambitious thoughts of working for myself on the sideline.
It seemed so far away as a concept.
It wasn’t until I looked around and wondered where my future was going, and didn’t see anything on the horizon except the empty sameness.
That’s when I decided to finally take the leap. I wanted freedom above all else, even if it meant not knowing when I would get paid. Everyone has faced adversity in one form or another, and as much as we dislike comfort, it’s an important part of our experience.
There are chosen struggles and also ones that are of circumstance, things like socioeconomic status, education, upbringing, illness.
The hand that we’re dealt isn’t always fair, but what we decide to do with this hand is what turns us from being victims of our lives, to the heroes of our own story.
To be honest it’s hard not to compare yourself to others who have a better head start, more money, or more connections. I would be lying if I said I didn’t compare myself to others from time to time.
The point of struggle isn’t to bring us down or keep us wallowing in pain, but it shines a light on what’s important to us.
It’s an unavoidable part of our lives, but with the right perspective it can help forge us into the people we need to become.
When I first started my journey of building my own business, I struggled, a lot and sometimes I still do. I didn’t make any money for months and when I did, it was barely enough to cover the necessities.
In those moments though, I was continually reminded of what was important for me. To build something that can help people, and to take my life and my time into my own hands. That motivation alone drowned out any doubts when they arose.
I grew up with Goku as someone I admired, and seeing him fight and almost get beaten, only to dig deep within himself and find the power to keep going, I can’t tell you how much motivation and energy that gave me.
He and so many other heroes who struggle to get where they are now motivated me to want to be better. I loved that, the idea of struggling and growing. That strength or the experience gained to be better is something hard fought.
I find something admirable in that. In these stories the people who took the shortcuts always had to pay a price for it.
Whether it’s sacrificing a part of their humanity for power or giving up their freedom. The person who bought their followers and doesn’t know what to do with all the attention, or the trend rider who sells their individuality for fame.
Sure, you’ve gotten there, but where’s the substance? What’s the meaning behind it? The shortcut seems like the best way, until you realize that the journey itself is what builds the endpoint that we look for. You end up having to repay that shortcut one way or another anyway. Nothing can substitute lived experience.
Now I worry for my younger brother and sister, because the narrative being pushed now is that growth needs to come quickly, “if you haven’t grown by this much in this amount of time then you’re doing something wrong, pay me and you can get there”.
The idea of slow continuous growth is dying, but not dead.
In today’s culture with every “content coach” proclaiming they can help you gain 50k followers in a month, and what they don’t preface is that the 10k a month lifestyle they built is something that took them years to build.
I can’t help but think about my time in high school when class mates would come up to me saying they can turn my 100 dollars into 500. Even back then I could foresee how well that would go. It seems just as ridiculous now as it did before. The grift economy preys on impatience, and AI is the newest version of the same old shortcut
With AI it’s so “easy” to create content, articles and just fabricate anything with minimal effort. I say easy with quotation marks because the lifelessness is apparent, and honestly I had used it in the past to write my scripts for content. But I sounded so robotic, and uncomfortable reading something that isn’t me.
You can just shut your brain off and type in a prompt then boom, everything is done. The only problem with that is that AI removes friction. You don’t struggle, and in turn you don’t grow. You can’t become a better artist, writer or creative without struggle, its what fuels what we do.
What AI can’t do is simulate what makes us human, personality. To be honest it’s an amazing tool, but the one problem is that we’re human. People by nature will try to choose the easiest path, the one with less friction.
I mentioned my slow growth earlier, and while at first it felt excruciating, I realized now the growth that I have made has been right on track to where I need to be. It’s shown me parts of myself I wouldn’t bring up unless I faced the challenges that I did. I’m infinitely grateful for the challenges that I’ve faced, and the person I’ve become on the other side of it.
Discomfort can be your best friend, if you learn how to observe it correctly.
If you’re struggling, and you feel behind, the fact that you’ve taken the path to get better puts you ahead by miles.