Gosh, this is frustrating, isn’t it?
This whole process—leaving behind our mediocrity, smallness, and fears, and taking up greatness and courage. Once we start, we can never stop, not without losing some vital piece of ourselves.
But sometimes, I just want to quit.
If we’re being 100% real with each other, as I write this, I feel like I already have.
This is just one of those “lulls”—I’ll take a break out of this pity party and get back on the trail—but for now, for these 15 minutes, I have to let the frustrating thing be frustrating.
The frustrating thing is this: it’s one thing to dream big, believe in the impossible, plan for reawakening our hearts, and another thing entirely to actually do it. At some point, we have to transition from mere thoughts and ideals to concrete, real action.
I need to simmer in how dang hard it is to keep fighting for those parts of me that have been latent and dormant. I mean, there’s a reason they got that way in the first place. Wouldn’t it be easier to let them stay that way?
Yes.
It would.
It would be easier to settle for comfortable, known realities. It would be easier to stay here, right where I am. I could make a pretty great life here. Maybe you already have. Why would we want to give that up?
At some point—maybe immediately, maybe not for years—I would look back and wonder, What if?
No matter what, I might look back and wonder What if, but I don’t want it to be because I didn’t try, right now, today.
I know all this. I know, deep in my bones, I’m not giving up or going anywhere. I know I’m not leaving this journey behind.
That’s why I’m angry. In the midst of all these impossibilities and discouragements, when I would really like to be the kind of person who can simply walk away and say, “Well, boys, I tried,” I know I’m not. I started something here, and I’m going to finish it. I will see this through to the end, whatever that end may be.
There is incredible freedom in taking a break from that “We can do it!”-screaming-cheerleader mentality and admitting, maybe I can’t do it. It’s frustrating. But instead of covering it up and plowing through anyway, let’s let the frustrating thing be frustrating.
Just for a couple minutes, not forever. (Taking a break from the screaming cheerleader does not give us permission to become a negative defeatist.)
At the end of the day, that scared, little voice that says, maybe I can’t do it could be right. That’s a distinct possibility.
But here’s the thing: That little voice has won in my heart for way too long. No more. I may not be able to do it—not alone, anyway—but I will still work like hell to try.
