The evidence is pretty clear that facing challenges is a big part of why we’re here on this planet we’ve named Earth. For most of us, almost everything we eventually end up being good at and deriving joy from begins as a challenge—something we had to practice to get good at. And every challenge we rise to in our lives teaches us something and helps us grow so we can discover who we are, and who we can become. This process appears to actually be the foundation of evolution—which is what happens to us regardless of whether we believe in it. The only thing we have some control over in the process is how fast we evolve.
While change is the only constant in this equation, it is all too often painfully (and unnecessarily) slow, and sometimes it hardly seems like anything is changing at all. But when you pursue change, it not only comes more rapidly, and is usually far less painful, it’s actually pretty exciting much of the time. Which means that unless you actually enjoy suffering instead of simply being used to it, then I have one suggestion for you: embrace every single challenge you face in your life for what it really is—an opportunity for you to grow and become more than you are.
When you rise to each and every challenge with everything you have, and when you strive every single day to be the best human being you can be, the challenges get more interesting and tend to involve a lot less of the petty drama most people have to face in their lives on a regular basis.
And the more you seek out challenges on your own instead of waiting for them to come to you, the more productive, fun and enriching your experiences will become (since you’ll get to choose the challenges instead of the challenges choosing you), and the more opportunities will open up to you at every turn. These challenges can be physical, emotional, or intellectual, and you don’t have to take my word for how effective they are; you can try it for yourself. And it won’t cost you anything, except a little of your time.
As you begin seeking out challenges, you will probably find that at least some of those challenges won’t be very easy, but that’s only because they’ll be a challenge—which is the best thing for you, remember? You won’t gain anything truly transformative from these experiences if they aren't at least a little bit hard, forcing you to rise to meet them, and, again, to become more than you are.
Think about some of the challenges you’ve had to face in your own life, both those you’ve chosen yourself in order to improve or exhibit your skills in certain areas, and those you haven’t chosen that have perhaps arisen in your relationships with others, including your family, your lovers, your colleagues, and your friends, or even just the kinds of unexpected challenges that arise as obstacles of various kinds that stand between us and our goals.
I suspect that rising to most of those challenges, chosen or otherwise, has led to results and rewards that have proven invaluable in your personal evolution to become the person you are right now. And I suspect that even most of the personal relationships that have gone through challenging times have actually become deeper and more forgiving because of it. What you learn from rising to those kinds of challenges often strengthens the foundation of your relationships, enhancing those connections.
It is only through how we respond to these challenges of every kind arising in our lives that we discover who we are, just as the Universe discovers itself through us in every moment we live. We learn something from experiences that push us beyond our comfort zones that makes us—in every way—more than we were before, and helps us to grow and evolve by leaps and bounds instead of by crawling, which is how the pace of personal evolution can feel sometimes. And that’s exactly why you’re here, to every single day become more than you were the day before.
Well, what are you waiting for?
Don’t stop changing,
Brian
