I recently found myself in a conversation that left me rather troubled. It wasn’t that the subject matter was disturbing or controversial, or that I had any disdain towards the person on the other end of the conversation (or vice versa), or that we were in any major disagreement with each other. No, the trouble was that this individual and I were approaching our conversation from two fundamentally different views of life. I felt like we were speaking different languages.

This person’s ethos could be most simply described with the word “ease.” Mine could perhaps be described most simply with the word “growth.”

In their mind, life was an effort to avoid discomfort, run from struggle, and put the highest value in immediate comfort and ease. If something was unpleasant, uncomfortable, or hard, it was to be immediately hated and rejected. In my mind, to struggle is fundamentally a part of what it is to be alive. Struggle is necessary for growth, and to undergo stress and to adapt is at the core of what it is to be a living, evolving being. It is, quite literally, in our DNA. This made for a conversation in which we were each trying to describe an image that existed in a color spectrum that the other couldn’t even see.

Struggle must have meaning -- this is where growth and adaptation comes from. Without it, we’re just talking about misery. But to run from all discomfort and reject all struggle is, in my mind, a fundamentally un-human thing to do. You are a being borne out of struggle. Biologically, a creature which encounters struggle and can adapt (survive) continues its lineage. The opposite is not true. If you cannot adapt, or if you run from struggle and place your value in immediate comfort and ease, you will be unprepared when you inevitably do encounter resistance. The harsh realities of biology remind us that these creatures are long since forgotten.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that struggle doesn’t mean unhappiness. In my experience, those who most regularly expose themselves to struggle and find ways to adapt are the most deeply satisfied and happy individuals, while those who run from struggle and seek only ease find themselves fundamentally dissatisfied, unhappy, caught in the disappointing middle-ground between perceptions of how things “should be” and how things actually are.

Struggle on, friends. It’s part of who you are.

- PS

2/1/18

• Bench press - 5,5,5

Then...

• CrossFit Open Workout 18.0

• For time, 21-15-9 reps of:

• Dumbbell snatch (50/35)

• Burpee over dumbbell