In life, we have two choices:
We take ownership of our destiny.
We let our destiny take ownership of us.
For that reason, I'm a deep thinker - someone who has a thought and breaks it down to its core components to fully understand its meaning.
Some might label me as an "overthinker"
The difference between both concepts is that one is self-serving, while the other is not.
My point: Perspective matters.
That makes the paradigm we choose to live within matter more.
The problem comes when we have been conditioned since childhood to follow the norm without questioning its path.
I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers
At school, we were taught to follow a set curriculum, sit at a desk for eight hours, ask for permission to do anything, and go from class to class when the bell rang.
Growing up, we were taught to color within the lines. Anything outside of them was labeled as wrong, ugly, and stupid.
Going into our adult years, we were told to find a well-paying career path, aim high at the corporate ladder, and if you had different aspirations, you were being considered unrealistic.
Is it surprising that by the time we are grown, we would also subscribe to any school of thought that is also considered to be the norm?
At the end, we were educated to repeat what we were taught, but never to question it.
Why Struggling Is A Choice
In the walks of life, I've noticed an interesting pattern amongst society, all from different backgrounds and statuses:
They've all subscribed to the school of thought that one must struggle or suffer in order to be worthy of receiving good things.
But don't take my word for it. Pay attention to your surroundings; what do you see?
Nowadays, everyone just seems to…
Be missing something in their life.
Struggling to obtain it.
Violently forcing their way to get there.
Was “to struggle” part of society's curriculum? The “norm” everyone needed to subscribe to?
I sat around for many weeks going over those same questions while consciously following the idea that a lot of people unconsciously follow.
Left and right, the more I subscribed to it, the more struggle I saw, the more struggle I experienced. Why was that?
According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, struggle means to make strenuous or violent efforts in the face of difficulties or opposition.
In the book "Life was never meant to be a struggle", Stuart Wilde described struggle as laced emotions and desperation.
My personal understanding of struggle is described as an inner dilemma - We don’t want to be here; we want to be there, and we are struggling to get there.
In sales, I was taught to look for the "red cars" - those prospects who are worth your time because they are open to listen and qualified enough to make a change.
It allowed me to cut all of the extra bluff and focus on what truly mattered.
I will use that same principle here to describe how my experience was.
I went to the street corner, I noticed more people struggling to eat and have a roof over their head.
I turned on the news, and watched more people struggling to find peace through the means of violence.
I sat in silence and closed my eyes for five minutes, I noticed all the struggling thoughts I was having about the million different things I was experiencing.
Everywhere I looked, those red cars just kept on showing up. And the more I would look for them, the more of them I would find.
Was I conditioning my mind to focus on struggle, and through it, creating more of it?
As I kept journaling my experience, one question stood out to me:
Was struggle a natural event that everyone must subscribe to, or was it just another one of those things that we'd been brainwashed with?
That's when I remembered the word, effort.
The meaning of effort is to make a conscious exertion of power. It originates from two Latin words: "Out" and "Strength."
In anything that we do in life, effort must be present. It is the backbone of growth.
When I think of what the word “effort” means to me, I think of strength and resilience. Two very powerful words.
So, if the principle of focus (looking for red cars) was real, would all those people who were in a state of agony be able to prosper if they shifted their focus from struggle to effort?
And that's when it hit me: To struggle is a choice.
How To Stop Struggling
As a society, we have forgotten to control what is most precious to us, our mind. We have allowed others to manipulate our reality with false, polluted thoughts and ideas.
Since we were kids, we'd been conditioned to look up and wait for instructions.
We were never taught to think for ourselves. We were instead taught to follow blindly.
To live life to the fullest. You have to color outside the lines once in a while if you want to make your life a masterpiece… The important thing is not to stop questioning
Reality is that regardless of what you choose to believe in, you will still be following a path, and that's okay.
What I'm here to make sure of is that when you do decide to follow a school of thought, you have the awareness to make a conscious decision about following it.
Because, as Carl Jung famously said, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate."
The first step is to realize that there is an immense power within you.
We are God's most beautiful creation, rooted to the very source of wisdom through our minds.
The tool is in your arsenal, utilize it and think.
Second step is to realize that you have the power to choose effort and intention instead of struggle and desperation.
Ultimately, when you operate from struggle, you are sending out into the universe electric thoughts of lack, need, and desperation.
Why would you want to do that?
Instead, have a vision that you are putting effort towards each day. And through that very effort, create your desired realm of existence.
Quantum physics shows that every potential version of you exists right now. Meaning, it is within your power to choose the paradigm that you want to live in.
And lastly, let go of the outcome you're seeking.
Being attached to something that's outside of you - like a house, money, relationship, etc creates resistance between you and that very thing.
And as the Law of attraction goes: In order to obtain it, you must be willing to let go.
Doing otherwise will radiate that you don’t have it yet, further creating distance between where you are and where you want to be.
Your Life Moving Forward
Your thoughts define your emotions, your emotions define your actions. Both define your identity, and your identity is the catalyst for your reality.
You now have the awareness to undo all of the resistance that you have unconsciously created.
You now have the power to bring yourself to a harmonious inner state (where healing happens and everything you are looking for resides)
My only request from you is to embody this message and through it, inspire those around you.
Thank you for reading. Until next time.
– Daniel