“I’m a mean SOB and the sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be” said my Linear Circuits Professor Robert Luganani. And life is just like that, it is a struggle and hard work and the sooner we accept that the better off we are.
However, many of us, the ones who grew up in a privileged middle class income household, isolated from any kind of suffering that might have required us to put in hard work outside of soccer practice and homework two to three hours a day, expect life to be equal parts fun and work. We know that if we worked for an hour we got to play for two. If we did homework for an hour we go to watch TV for two. We were hardwired not just to work little and expect a lot, but we were taught that we don’t need to work a lot.
Had we learned that it is challenges instead of constant gratifications we would not get hooked on liquor, drugs or even facebook, constantly seeking that high.
And so there you have it, we expect to be CEO’s and directors because no one showed us that the director was a paperboy, no one showed us that the CEO was a middle manager, we only saw the made product. As another metaphor goes, no one shoed the cow dick before it became the hotdog, we just got the good tasting hotdog and ignored the steps it took to make it so.
Thus, the sooner we realize life is hard, life is a struggle, life is challenges and in those challenges and efforts is the real fruit and essence of life, the better we will be, the better our success will be and the better humans we will ultimately, be.
Can you imagine what it would be like, to look forward to challenges, to feel good about mastering a new bad habit, to feel the pleasure of overcoming a tax return and welcoming the next onslaught of problems life has for us. Problems means we got past something, it means we are alive and part of life is a fight that we survive. This is why soldiers who come home are bored and cannot find that high, unless they plunge themselves into some kind of new challenge a new endeavor which pushes them to be the best they can be, to feel that rush that whether it is a sink full of dishes or a financial term sheet.
However, many of us, the ones who grew up in a privileged middle class income household, isolated from any kind of suffering that might have required us to put in hard work outside of soccer practice and homework two to three hours a day, expect life to be equal parts fun and work. We know that if we worked for an hour we got to play for two. If we did homework for an hour we go to watch TV for two. We were hardwired not just to work little and expect a lot, but we were taught that we don’t need to work a lot.
Had we learned that it is challenges instead of constant gratifications we would not get hooked on liquor, drugs or even facebook, constantly seeking that high.
And so there you have it, we expect to be CEO’s and directors because no one showed us that the director was a paperboy, no one showed us that the CEO was a middle manager, we only saw the made product. As another metaphor goes, no one shoed the cow dick before it became the hotdog, we just got the good tasting hotdog and ignored the steps it took to make it so.
Thus, the sooner we realize life is hard, life is a struggle, life is challenges and in those challenges and efforts is the real fruit and essence of life, the better we will be, the better our success will be and the better humans we will ultimately, be.
Can you imagine what it would be like, to look forward to challenges, to feel good about mastering a new bad habit, to feel the pleasure of overcoming a tax return and welcoming the next onslaught of problems life has for us. Problems means we got past something, it means we are alive and part of life is a fight that we survive. This is why soldiers who come home are bored and cannot find that high, unless they plunge themselves into some kind of new challenge a new endeavor which pushes them to be the best they can be, to feel that rush that whether it is a sink full of dishes or a financial term sheet.
not-rushin 