March 17th, 2025
Lets be honest, we all can agree that we hate being uncomfortable.
Cold showers are not fun when you first start them — to be fair, they absolutely suck.
Doing as many burpees as you can in 6:00 is probably not the most enjoyable experience.
Waking up 1 hour earlier takes time to get acclimated to.
Choosing to stop eating sugar, drinking alcohol, eliminating processed food is not for the faint of heart.
For almost all of us, we can agree that when things get tough, by design, we seek an easy way out.
In my experience, modern society will present for us a rather relativistic way of living aka the easy way, the path of least resistance.
Do what you want, when you want and don't worry about the consequences.
However, when you choose to live opposite of this, it can feel as though you are swimming against the current.
Most of the time, when you are seeking to make a change, whether it be something major like changing a career or minor such as creating a new habit of waking up earlier, the world will attempt to exploit the natural desire of seeking the easy way with pressure to give up. If you find yourself in this position frequently, it may be time to pause and ask yourself the following question.
When things get tough, do I seek the easy way out?
Be honest with yourself. This question can be ruthless in exposing your own habitual failures but know that this is not an exercise in shame. This is an exercise in identifying the key areas of your life that are limiting your growth and your ability to achieve exactly what you want.
We are human. By design, the temptation to give up will always be there. The casual offering of the apple from the tree will always be presented.
It’s just one piece of candy.
It’s just the snooze button one time.
It’s just one drink
It’s just…
The point being, when you seek radical transformation in your life by implementing either radical or small habitual change, the world is going to pressure you to quit. To seek the easy way. To convince you that whatever it is you are seeking to change about yourself is not worth it and you should just stay the course you are currently on.
My encouragement: Don’t Give Up.
Resist.
This is a distraction to keep you busy, to occupy your time, to keep the metaphorical carrot dangled in front of you.
The allurement of the “comfort” the world offers is all part of the disorder of the easy path that has created the unsatisfactory and anxious life you are living day to day.
When you seek to make habitual change, if you are prepared by knowing that the lies of the world will come, you will be more ready to actively ask yourself the question: am I picking the easy path here.
As you condition yourself to develop a buffer, what is best referred to as resilience, or in some circles, virtue, you will slowly begin to automatically live a life that seeks the difficult path because the reward is so much greater than the comfort of modern society.
When things get tough, stop taking the easy path. Start seeking ways to face what is difficult in the small habitual tasks of the day (take a cold shower, fast 2x a week, cut out sugar, wake up earlier) that way when things actually do get tough, because we know they will, you will be ready to face them head on.
Remember…it's 4:45 AM…I made the choice a long time ago to no longer take the easy path, maybe this is the wake up call you need to do that in your own life…and if you are walking with me, wherever you are in the world, know that I am praying for you and willfully suffering with you.
Till next week.
