I realize that I may come off to my readers as a person who thinks that life is or should be solely positive and peachy when that is not the case whatsoever with the reality of life. I will be the first personal development enthusiast to staunchly tell you that life is bullshit and that would be a truth and I would also be the first to tell you that life is wondrous and that would be a truth. Life is one huge paradox; you want life to be happy and peaceful, but then again contrast is a must or life would be really bland and undesirable. What I am stating is that you have to take the bad and the good because to experience only one would not be living. You need the good experiences and the bad experiences to balance things out in life. You have to always remember that every day is a battle!
The funny thing about personal growth is that you need adversity to stunt your growth a bit or else you would not even realize a need to really grow because everybody would be doing it and success would become commonplace and not the grandeur thing that we perceive it to be. Temptation can make us or break us. You may not feel like going to the gym today and working your butt off, but what is sitting around going to do for you? Nothing of course, but your conflict would be that you do not feel like going even though you are intelligent enough to know that going to the gym and exercising would be much, much better for your health instead of not going and remaining sedentary, hence every day’s a battle and one cannot grow unless contrast is present. This is why life is one huge paradox. None of us desire contrast and adversity which may come in the forms of unexpected events, not feeling like you want to do something even though you should, dealing with negative people, dealing with unfavorable circumstances, struggling to accept oneself, and so on, yet this adversity is the fuel for our personal growth.
Many personal development blogs won’t tell you this, but life is bullshit, and paradoxically, even though we dislike bullshit it has its proper place in molding us as successful individuals. My goal in writing the personal development material in which I write on this blog is not to create positive, perky, and upbeat human beings who think that life is a breeze, but rather my goal is to encourage individuals to grow through the adversity that belongs.
Life is not the following three things:
- Sweet & Peaceful — As I have already stated, every day is a battle. Sweet and peaceful moments are surely attainable, but trying to attain a sweet and peaceful life is clearly not doable. Life is not meant to be sweet and peaceful because adversity molds us as individuals and that is just the way life works. Life is really about finding your through adversity to find a higher existence or an existence where adversity affects you less and in such a way that it actually fuels you. Life is also about finding the best ways (in everyone’s best interest) to go about doing things. Trust me when I say that there have been plenty of people in my life that I have felt the need to vehemently backhand for annoying me or talking shit, but I simply kept my cool and ignored and those people as that was and still is the best way to deal with people you do not like. Just forget them and keep moving along your journey.
- A Competition — If you live your life as if it is a competition, then I have bad news for you, you have already lost. It is good to be a competitive person as wanting to grow and outperform the next man is only a natural expression of growth, but to live in a competitive mindset all the time with respect to those around you is bad because you never experience abundance because you will always be focusing on and putting a lot of energy into the things you do not have. Life is about always moving forward or continual improvement and growth, but those things do not include living solely for the sake of outdoing someone because living in such a way will never allow you to experience any happiness and self-contentment. Just always do your best and put a lot of energy into the things that you want to succeed at, but never base your worth on what others have or have done because that is not the point of life.
- Limited — I confidently believe that life is abundant. Limitation is only an appearance because the truth of all things is growth. There is nothing that you cannot achieve even though it will take overcoming a great wave of adversity before you actually get the things you desire to have. Behind every success story you could possibly examine, you will find that someone persevered no matter how much turmoil he or she had experienced. There is enough for you, I, and everyone else who is willing to attain their desires through plans and actions, and more importantly, through persistence.