Struggle is Chosen

So, from yesterday you know I’m not perfect, and I pretty much suck in general.

Let’s look at why I believe we choose to struggle.

Struggle is, by its very nature, born of refusing to accept what is. We cannot be in a place of embracing life and struggling, they are mutually exclusive.

Taking the things from yesterday’s blog as examples:

I only become angry when I am thinking things and people need to be different. It’s not about what people are or are not doing, it is about me thinking they should be different.

“Don’t look at your cell phone every time you stop your car, you are not that important and you make me miss the green light.”

“Don’t just throw your trash over the fence and hope you hit the dumpster. You aren’t very coordinated and I end up picking it up.”

These things are annoying and not necessarily skillful, but being bothered by them is my choice. I choose to struggle with them.

I only struggle with video games and binging on Netflix when I let the idea gain traction in my mind. When I keep them where they belong, in moderation, there is no struggle. I choose to struggle when I entertain the idea of doing something I know I shouldn’t.

I struggle with being in debt when I let myself lose perspective and start moving into self-criticism for things I have no control over. I struggle when I try to take what I know now and apply it retroactively to myself years ago. I struggle when I wish this was different.

I struggle when I idealize things like the past and what it was like.

I struggle when I fall into the mindset that things used to be better or almost perfect, or that living somewhere else would be better or almost perfect.

I struggle when I forget that people are people and there is no perfect community out there. This is chosen.

I struggle when I don’t stay present with what I am doing, and wish I wasn’t in the car or mowing the lawn or that I had a housekeeper. I struggle when I let comparisons sneak in and start telling me I “should” be doing something else.

This is all what I mean by struggle being chosen. We struggle when we entertain ideas that have no profit for us, or that make bad choices a possibility. We struggle when we start debating, no matter how subtly, doing something we know is not helpful to us or good for us. We struggle when we start resisting things we have no control over.

This doesn’t apply to things we cannot control. When those are the issue at hand, there doesn’t need to be a struggle. Just do what you know you need to do and move on.

Don’t choose struggle. That’s part of my struggle these days.