Author: quietcliett

When you hear the word “opposition,” what immediately comes to mind? Some people think of the enemy in a war or the bad guys in their favorite movie. I personally just think of life. That seems a little dark, I realize, but to be honest my main source of discouragement comes from my inability to effect change around me. I look around and see the state of our education system, or the train wreck that is the political choices for this upcoming 2016 election, and I just want to punch something. Not someone, of course. I mean I’m not violent.

Then I go to work and begin checking emails and looking at what I have to do, and I realize just how much money I DON’T make, and how many more people I could be helping, and just how little I really do in this world. I get discouraged and feel hopeless and want to quit–and then I see some article for a guy who started out broke and now owns a billion dollar company, or some similar story. I begin to think about what I can do right now to grow my business and begin to get excited. If you are anything like me, then it is at this point you begin to grit your teeth and decide, “You know what? Screw the odds. Let’s change the world right now. I don’t need the government’s help, I don’t need money, I’ll just work so hard and feverishly towards a better world that people around me will begin to change, too, like it’s a disease. Right now, I’m casting out discouragement. This is it.”

Of course, sitting at your desk seething with determination and passion lasts about as long as takes to get up and get a cup of coffee, and then you try to actually do your work and realize that, despite your resolution, nothing has actually changed. People around you don’t even know anything happened in those 45 seconds you were glaring at your screen and tightening your fist. To your dismay, the world is just as dark and discouraging as it was just a few minutes ago. Slowly you sit back down and go about that project you were putting off because you really have nothing more meaningful to do.

So. What are you supposed to do with determination? Is it enough? Is that energy, that drive, sufficient to make a business work? The answer is, no. It isn’t. I don’t care how much you WANT to be a rock star; you aren’t going to make it if you aren’t any good at your instrument, or you never get out and play for people for free and build a fan base. Even then, many talented musicians have never managed to get famous because they don’t know the right people or they don’t live in the right town to really get noticed.

I personally find this exceedingly discouraging, and a little unfair. Why shouldn’t the hard working underdog get what he is working towards? Why is it that so many businesses fail, and so many passionate entrepreneurs end up working at Walmart or doing construction because the world didn’t give them a chance? Now that I think of it, why is Walmart so special? How is it that their CEO never struggles to pay his bills like I do?

I actually don’t have the answers. I usually write with the purpose of helping people and giving insight into every day situations, and hopefully my words will reach someone where they are. But I don’t have a quick fix for the hard days. I don’t know of a patch you can put on your life to make it more fair. Discouragement can come from any direction, even well meaning friends, and it can certainly come from society. In this age of consumerism, only those who offer the cheapest product with the fastest, “funnest” reward can hope to keep anyone’s business, and that isn’t necessarily a good thing.

Especially in America, we have grown accustomed to immediate gratification, which of course you know and have heard about for years now. That isn’t an original idea I have, it’s just the way things are. Just look at the mobile gaming industry–in the past few years casual games have gone from “beat the game and rescue the princess to unlock new rewards” to a pay-to-win format; “just pay $9.99 right now to remove ads and receive 1,000 GameBucks that you can spend on cheats to make the game easier and more fun!” Of course those 1,000 Gamebucks are gone in all of 8 seconds and the game then says, “Still losing? Buy more moves for only $19.99 Just $7.99 for a limited time only!”

This post is not about the gaming industry, but that is a perfect illustration of how our mindsets have changed. Hard work, facing resistance and growing stronger have become words that old geezers use to patronize us. For crying out loud, I’m thriving in the digital age here! I don’t need to LEARN anything, I have Google! I don’t need to work on marketable skills, I just need money! It is so much easier to work at McDonald’s and sue them to give me higher minimum wage pay, than to make an effort in school and earn a degree that will help me land a respectable job! That would be too hard, and life isn’t supposed to be difficult. I’m just a guy trying to get by in this crazy world and for all the crap I put up with, they owe me higher pay. I can’t actually enjoy life if I spend all my time serving other people for hardly any money. What good is money if I don’t get to buy myself new toys?

Maybe now you are starting to see that my point is NOT just “Poor little me, I can’t get ahead in life because things are too hard…” Opposition, resistance–these are necessary for survival. No, it isn’t fair. Grow up. Life isn’t ever going to be fair. I don’t know how “religious” my reader base is, but I am a follower of Jesus and I can tell you right now that if life was fair, I would have been the one on the Cross. I am not, and was not, and will never be worth saving but Christ died in my place anyway. This isn’t a sermon, it’s what I believe and I won’t try to hide it.

“If life was fair, I would have been the one on the Cross.”

But my point is not to turn this into an invitation and pray with you. My point is, we need opposition. We need resistance. Ever tried to build muscle by just lifting your arms into the air? Good luck. Have you ever tried to beat someone at checkers who let you win? It sucks! That isn’t rewarding, it’s a waste of time! I don’t want victory handed to me in pity, I want to wrench it from the grasp of my enemy! Grr!!!

I may seem a bit disjointed in my presentation, but ultimately I want you to get from this that life isn’t easy. I know that. It is in fact very difficult. And I don’t have the answers, or the secret to free money. What I do have is hope. And a little heart. I know I can make it, even if I don’t know HOW I will make it. Discouragement works its way into your soul like a cancer, and it can take over and cripple you if you let it. This is the difference between waking up every day and deciding to do the best you can with the day ahead, versus waking up wishing you could fast forward through the dull, unrewarding emptiness that is your life.

One parting thought is the scientific idea of friction. Friction is what causes rope burns and carpet burns; it is resistance on a molecular level. If molecules did not have friction, then they would not face resistance and could move through the air unhindered. But do you know what else that would mean? Without friction, there could also be no traction! If your car had no resistance (friction) to overcome, you would not be able to control it! Your car would slide downhill until it was at the lowest point around, and it would stay there. If you tried to run, you would just slide around and never be able to go anywhere. That’s why in space, they have special training to move in a zero gravity environment, and they have to use a tether when they go outside the ship. There is friction, but no gravity or air resistance, so if they let go of the ship they just float away and have no way to get back! Did you catch that? Without resistance, you can not make progress.

This is true in our lives, as well. Without resistance, we can’t make any progress. Without an enemy, there would be no word for “victory.” Without friction, resistance against something, we would not make traction and would literally never get anywhere. I know that it isn’t easy. It is not supposed to be easy. Hard work does not exist without something to work against, and there is nothing rewarding about not doing anything. When you get discouraged, remember that discouragement is just a distraction from personal effort. If you are truly overwhelmed, it may be time for a break, but it is never time to quit completely. Life is not supposed to be a breeze, and if it really was you wouldn’t enjoy it. So make the most of the opportunities you have, and remember that the journey is always worth it when you see it over your shoulder.

Several years ago, when I was in college, I was getting ready to graduate and all I could think about was what I would do once I was finally free. “If I could just get out of college, then my life can really begin,” I thought to myself. Then, once I graduated, I lived with my parents for several months as I tried to find a good steady job and get my feet on the ground. Then I would think, “Once I find the right job and live totally on my own, my life can really begin.” Eventually, I moved out and was working three different jobs just to make ends meet–all the time I was hoping for my music and recording career to take off. I was also trying to save up money to ask my then-girlfriend to marry me. “If I could just get married and have a partner in all this, it would be so much easier. Then if I can record a short demo, I can start working on my music and everything will be great.” Then I got married, and got a full time job. Which I hated. So I would always comfort myself in the fact that one day I would not have to work there anymore and then I could really enjoy life. Around this time I began to realize: I am always going to have some situation or circumstance in my life that I wish was better, or at least different, for one reason or another. I don’t need to wish away each season in my life because things aren’t “perfect.”

At some point in life, everyone has an “if only” thought: “If only I had _____, I could be happy.” For some people, that blank represents an amount of money. For others, it is a meaningful relationship or a better job. Some people just want better toys: the newest Ferrari, the latest PlayStation, a bigger (or smaller) computer, a new phone. Some people are never happy, no matter what they get, while still others genuinely need a change from a difficult situation, relationship, etc.

These “If only’s” are something that everyone thinks of from time to time. I don’t think that is unhealthy. You may be expecting me to tell you to just suck it up and be happy, or be grateful, or something similar. In a sense, that is what I needed to do a few years ago, and it may be what you need to hear right now. But if it is true at this point in your life, then you should already know that and this post probably isn’t going to help you.  Telling you to “just be happy where you are” if you are dissatisfied with your life is kind of like telling a homeless man “Hey, just get off the streets and get a job!” Or like saying to a starving child “you just need to eat something!” It sounds so easy and simple when you are talking about someone else but when it hits home, when it is your life, that is some of the hardest advice–because if I KNEW how to be happy, I WOULD BE HAPPY RIGHT NOW. Thanks for nothing.

What I want to do instead is to encourage you to think about your situation differently. I read a blog post back around the time I was first settling in to married life, and was just beginning to realize how much I hated my job. That blog post really helped me change my perspective. I am in no way affiliated with that blog or author, and I don’t remember the author’s name, but I will never forget the name of the post: “Life doesn’t begin at your next milestone.” Whoa.

The exact wording of it all, I don’t remember, but essentially it reminded me that life is what happens while we are busy making other plans. What you do at home after work at that job you don’t like is, forever, how you spent one evening of your life. If you come home from work every day and binge watch Netflix, you are spending your life watching Netflix while working at a job you hate. If you like to draw or paint or write, however, and you come home every day and draw, or paint, or write, then you are spending your time doing what you love.

I have always wanted to write. I enjoy writing. Fiction, advice, research articles, insights, and even just ramblings are all rolling around in my head, just waiting to get out. If I never write any of it down because I won’t get paid for it, or because I think no one wants to read it, I am wasting an opportunity to do something I love doing. What other people think should not dictate how you spend your days; but even if it did, which do you think they would respect more: a life lived in waiting for a day that never comes, or a live spent enjoying every moment and pouring your energy into becoming who you were meant to be?

Wishing away the season you are in now seems to be human nature, for some reason. We always want things to be different, kind of like the idea that “the grass is always greener.” We eventually get tired of what we see, and we want a change. Therein lies the secret, though: change. Change does not have to mean moving on. A wise friend of mine told me once, “If you are looking at the other side of the fence and the grass is green, but then you look around at your side of the fence and you see that the grass is turning brown–you need to water your grass.” That has become one of my favorite quotes. We are so quick to complain about how things aren’t what we want, or to get depressed because we have that one thing in life that we just can’t seem to get rid of. But if we succumb to the despair, and just live our lives trying to cope with our frustration, we miss the adventures that await us in the everyday and the mundane.

My reason for writing this all today is to say this to you: Don’t spend your time waiting. I have not yet recorded a full album, and that is something I would like to do one day. But if I go home every day depressed about how I haven’t accomplished it yet, and never work on writing or playing any music, it is never going to get any closer than it was yesterday or the day before, or last month or last year. How you spend your time, day after day, is how you are spending your life. If you want to make a difference, and you want your life to really count, make it count right now. Remember how short life is. Remember that we are never guaranteed tomorrow. What you do today could be the last thing you ever do. My mark on the world could be the sum of my life up until now, and that could be it. The last words I ever say could be what I am typing now. For me, that is a good reason to live today as if it really counts–because friend, it does.