Bring it On: The Only Choice a Man Has

I've learned a lot, especially recently, from this business that I'll hopefully take and apply to life. A business is like a condensed version of a life, maybe even more like life was a couple thousand years ago.

The dangers that a business faces are much more prevalent and life-threatening (to the business). After one seemingly destructive issue is solved, another awaits. Our lives, in contrast, are more spread out, as are the dangers we face. 

Being that a business faces more clear and present danger, it can train you to better deal with adversity and the problems you face, you just have to be able to step back, see things over a longer time-frame, and detach.

As I talk more with business owners and entrepreneurs, I realize that business is problems, but so is life. To wish they didn't exist is weakness, to see their necessity, however, is strength. 

In facing problems in any area of life, a man has to see their value, always. Even if they leave us wounded, we're wiser for it. Even if they nearly destroy us, we gain confidence and strength from having withstood their onslaught. 

We have to see problems correctly, if we're to conquer them.

And we have to see life correctly, if we're to live it fully, and dare I say, properly.

The Good of the Bad

“No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself.” — Seneca

Whether we know it or not, we are trying to prove ourselves. We're largely trying to prove ourselves to ourselves. 

This is how we create confidence. This is how we know what we can handle, and also what we can aspire to achieve.

A life without adversity is meaningless. A life devoid of a proving ground is soft and weak, without forward motion, without improvement.

If achievement were easy, too, everyone would do it. It's the quest to achieve, to build something, a great body, a great life, the actual process of doing something, that makes us better men. The struggles toughen us, help us think better, more clearly, they add wisdom, power, and strength. Without them we're fragile. Having gone through them we're robust.

Seeing them as good, is the first step, because they are good. They are good in that they provide us an opportunity.

Adversity allows us to grow - if we so choose.

Adversity allows us to prove something, what we can handle, the problems we can solve. It allows us to learn, so we can better solve similar problems in the future. It also provides wisdom. When we've dealt with a problem, one that's seemingly life-altering, even business-ending, the next problem we face isn't so scary, and it's definitely less stressful.

These benefits of adversity depend on us seeing them as such, being open to the lessons in front of us, and not withering under the pressure, or quitting because of it.

Adversity, no matter how horrible or all-encompassing it may seem, has the potential to add to us, far more than it takes away from us.

It may seem bad in the moment, but in the end, if we allow it to be, it is good.

The Right Mindset for Mayhem

With MITA, things just go wrong, all the time. You can cover your ass in some ways, but things will still find a way to go wrong.

But, they end up being solved in the end. Having solved a few years worth of problems, problems are finally beginning to look different to me. They're many things other than what we view them as.

They're the barrier between what we know now and what we need to know.

They're a chance to handle bad things better, even if nothing's learned, it's an opportunity to treat people better when things aren't going well, even to treat yourself better.

They're not final. Even if they somehow in some way are, they're still not. There's still something on the other side of them.

All of this brings you clear-thinking and calm when you're in the middle of the storm, but there's a couple things that prevent us from seeing them as such while we're in their midst...

Ego and Pity

We have the audacity to think that we know how things ought to go. I'm seeing that I have no clue how things should happen.

Even meeting my now wife. I really didn't think a woman existed that was as good for me as she is. Stoic, intelligent, with all of the physical intangibles. I thought I knew there wasn't, so it wasn't something I was pursuing. 

My ego told me one thing, but life, God, knew better.

When things don't go as we want them to, even when some bad thing comes out of left field that's entirely not our fault, we can pity ourselves. It may not seem like pity, but it is. We get down, we wish things were different, we complain.

I've been there. It's a trick, it's not the truth.

There is no room for ego, and definitely no room for pity, if we want to live the best life we can live, and be the best men we can be.

How do you root out ego or pity?

Awareness.

Simply being aware of how these things trick you is suffice to root them out. When you recognize your self-talk as pity, it's gone. You start thinking in stronger, more positive ways.

Ego is the same. Forget plans and timelines, simply stack tasks. Simply do the work. Simply do all you can do and let things unfold as they unfold. Work hard, then work harder. Have discipline, and keep getting better, forget what you think you deserve, be deserving of what you want, and you end up getting it.

We see income as a predictor of wisdom, when the two aren't correlated. 

Having succeeded in any realm of life only means that you've done the right things to create some success... in that area. It doesn't mean you have wisdom in all areas.

Just today I went to Staples to get a printer. The guy working there was full of energy, even at 79. He's also been married 50 plus years, so I asked for some marriage advice. 

He gave me maybe the best complement I've ever gotten. He said I had no ego (I do, by the way, I just work on not letting it get in the way, it's a conscious effort). He said he has guys coming in all the time, and you can immediately tell they look down on people. So he keeps his distance. 

He said that it's ego that prevents us from solving problems in a marriage. And that if you have no ego, you'll be all good. You'll be able to sit down and talk and solve problems you face.

Of course, me telling you that complement is stroking my ego... but it also made me aware of how ego can blind us to solutions, advice, and wisdom. 

The only way I'm aware of of defeating the ego is to be aware that it exists. To be aware that it can be a massive blindspot in our desire for progress.

Awareness is everything.

Bring it On

Finally, let's cut the crap. 

We live in a soft society. Image is everything. What we show the world is how we're measured by the world - or so we think, or so our culture tells us. It's all bullshit.

If we're to lead our families. If we're to live well. We have to be strong and courageous. We have to hunt down adversity, attack it, love it, thrive amidst it.

Courage and pity cannot coexist. 

Courage is everything. It's not the absence of fear, though. That's a lie, too. It's not allowing fear to act as a deterrent. Fear, today, should act more often as a push toward something than a pull away from something. 

If you catch yourself pitying your situation, whisper that age old adage, 'man up'. 

We know what it means. It needs no definition. 

It's a call to stand strong, to lean into our fears, to be Stoic and courageous. 

Pity a life without adversity for it is no life for us.

The greater our aspirations, the more adversity we'll face. So, we ought to want it, to love it, to thrive because of it. Bring it on.