Keep Pushing Hard…

Life doesn’t care about one’s plans. That’s one of my most frequently used sayings across all the forums I post on, and many people feel that it has a negative connotation to it. Honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. I repeat this short phrase, almost like a mantra on a daily basis because it reminds me that I need to keep pushing and working at everything in life. And so do you. It isn’t intended as a negative thing, it simply represents the fact that if you lie on the floor curled up in a little ball instead of getting up and working at making things happen for yourself, nothing ever will.

And this leads to suffering in one’s own life. As I’ve written about before, Buddhism has this lovely concept of Four Noble Truths; the first two being the acknowledgement of suffering and the second being that this suffering is caused by us. I always like to push it one step further and point out that most of one’s suffering is self-inflicted. It’s for this reason that it’s important that one takes the necessary steps to get up and go.

A good analogy that I’ve used on others before, is to think about the remote control to your television. When I was a kid, you had to get up off your ass and turn the dial in order to change a channel… All three channels that you HAD, depending on how well your rabbit ears were aligned. Yes, I’m THAT old… My point is, modern televisions involve remote controls and many models don’t even feature physical buttons on the actual device anymore. Times have somewhat changed.

Now imagine that the batteries in your remote are dead. If you sit back and wait for the incidental chance that someone will come along and change them out for you, you’ll likely go without the binge-watching session you had planned. Especially since no one likely knows your batteries are even dead. So, maintain your own batteries. Keep yourself charged and moving. Batteries are a good analogy, too! Like a friend of mine has told me, “Be like a battery… Some negative, some positive but all power.” Man, I gotta get that printed on a t-shirt! Daryl, if you’re reading this, beers are calling, damn it!

I guess what I’m trying to get at with this poor attempt at a Monday motivation, is that there’s no turning back. Most people live regretting the past and wishing for the future and in doing so, miss out on the present. Life is hard. It’s not MEANT to be easy. If it were, where would the challenge be? That’s why the expression is “going THROUGH hell,” not “getting to hell, suffering a bit but turning back eventually.” Shit happens, bad things fall in our laps. But we owe it to ourselves to keep fighting the good fight, no matter how hopeless or tiring it may seem. No only up is through, so you need to keep pushing.

Instead of saying I regret that, say I look forward to this…
Instead of saying I wish I had, say I WILL!
Instead of Too bad that happened to me, say I will protect myself and learn from my mistakes!
Instead of I failed, say I made a mistake but I’ll recover and win!

Y’all get what I’m throwing down, here? Does it makes as much sense in print as it does in my head? Sometimes the thoughts in my head sound great but they tend to move faster than my fingers can type, so it doesn’t always have the desired impact. Last but not least, don’t be afraid to cut yourself a break. Mistakes and hardships are how we learn and grow. There would be no progress without it. As long as you’ve learned from it and you refuse to stop fighting, you may lose the occasional battle but you’ll ultimately win the war. ☯