This metaphor is more accurate than it looks.
The brain operates on a remarkably similar principle. Every time you make a mistake, take a wrong turn or face an unexpected setback it doesn't shut down. It rewires. It finds alternative pathways to the same destination. Psychologists call it neuroplasticity — the brain's ability to reorganize itself around obstacles rather than surrender to them.
The GPS doesn't mourn the missed turn. It doesn't replay the wrong decision. It just asks one question — where are you now? That's the only information it needs to build a new route forward.
Your brain works exactly the same way. The detour was never the problem. Losing sight of the destination is.
“The most important question to ask is what pain do you want in your life?
What are you willing to struggle for?
Anything worthwhile is going to require some degree of pain and struggle.
So if you’re oriented toward the pain and struggle you’re probably going to be more aligned with what you’re capable of accomplishing rather then if you just orient toward the pleasures.” — Mark Manson
Outstanding.
Consider this.
What pains can you deal with more easily than everyone else?
This is a more realistic version of “find what feels like play to you but looks like work to everyone else”.
Because any pursuit, even the most existentially aligned, will regularly feel like work.
I adore running the podcast.
But I don’t want to do 6 episode edits in a weekend just so I can have a week to myself over Christmas.
I don’t want to have to pack an entire recording studio with me to go to Guatemala so I don’t end up missing publish dates.
I don’t even ALWAYS want to read another book after going through 4 in a week.
But these are pains I’m prepared to have in my life.
I’m willing to struggle through them.
Any pursuit you love can become a labour.
If you want to keep the things you love as exclusively a pleasurable activity then that’s totally fine, but you can’t commit to Turning Pro with them.
As soon as you commit to give it your all, you also open the door to pain and struggle.
Let’s say you love pickleball and you’re good at it, maybe you’re an ex-tennis player from your youth.
You can rock up on a Saturday afternoon with your mates and play and have a fantastic time with ease.
Want to miss a weekend? Want to stop to start doing interpretive dance or have a baby? No worries.
Straight love, no labour.
However, if you want to become the best pro pickleball player you can be, all that is off the table.
Pickleball no longer folds around your life, your life folds around pickleball.
Early morning training sessions, conditioning, watching game tape, technique sessions, uncertainty about your income, travelling to tournaments – that is your pain.
It’s a different pain to the author who is having to write proposals and meet with agents and get rejected by publishers and spend months doing research to release a book.
Or the father who has to get up throughout the night and read books about parenting and get stuck in traffic on the way to football practice in order to be an amazing father.
But make no mistake, if you want to become great at whatever you want to do, you will go through pain and struggle.
So what pain and struggle do you want in your life?
“It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes even a single day, can change the course of a whole lifetime...”
— Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
@UTDAlex8 So in his next 91 games Isco needs to get 101 goals and 85 assists.. Not to mention Isco spent the majority of his career in La Liga and played for Real Madrid. Whereas Bruno has been doing it in the PL for the last 6/7 years in a struggling Manchester United side. Debate over.
before you go to bed tonight i just want to remind you that you’re going to be okay and you’re going to figure it out. your heart is going to heal. your soul is going to find its home, it’s purpose. you’re going to experience beautiful things. you’re going to love deeply, and find peace within yourself. your whole life is still ahead of you, you have time. trust the process
the wound didn’t shatter me
it lingered
like smoke curling around a candle
time folded itself
over silent nights
and small victories
that no one noticed
then one day
the shadow returned
not as pain
but as the strength i had built
in the quiet spaces
between fear and hope
i write for those who
carry their scars
and wear them as armor