The Hardest Year and Change

Simplifying life and accepting change

We’ve been through an ordeal. Last year was marked by a pandemic that started off as a short term fear and then burgeoned into a full blown global meltdown. Some things stopped completely, while others accelerated at light speed. And for many of us, things just completely changed.

I went through a challenging time in my relationship. I watched my father go through heart surgery having the double whammy of worrying about a covid infection increasing his risks. I watched friends lose relatives and others struggle through isolation. Meanwhile, I dealt with finding my own identity within the collective spirit of an increasingly digitized world. We, individually and as a society, watched America experience a giant, spreading wild fire - literally and metaphorically. It’s an unfair burden for any one person to wear, and we all had our own heavy load to carry.

Human resilience is wonderful. Some of us almost didn’t make it to vaccination and the partial reopening of society. But many of us did - forming new bonds while whittling away at more frivolous relationships. Some of us took space and turned inwards towards growth. Others started families or found new love; while those focused on their careers built things. Lots of things happened to fill the void, but the moral of the story is the common thread of overcoming and pushing forward.

I’ve suffered loss that felt equivalent to the pull of earth’s gravity when I first experienced it. Slowly over time, I healed and rebuilt. I’m a work in progress. However, I was lucky, or maybe just fortunate, to receive a book recommendation that greatly impacted how I choose to move through the world. As I was reading, I extracted so many nuggets that aligned with how I was already visualizing my life to be. The problem was I never had the tools or the blueprint to really execute that vision. The book I’m referencing is called The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. I’m not going to get into the tenets of the book because I highly recommend reading it. It’s a quick read (it hooks you and it’s not that long).

If you’re anti-self help because of the connotation, I assure you, I am too. I’m stubborn like that. This isn’t a book that feels gross or kitschy in that way. If there were a couple themes I’d highlight from this book, it would be the following:

• It all starts from self-acceptance.

• We make a lot of excuses for decisions we know we shouldn’t make.

• Life is really simple, but it takes courage to live simply.

The hardest possible thing I have faced in myself over the past year (and as a reflection over life in general) is that I realized I’ve often known the right move to make but have always lacked the courage to make it. As I’ve pushed into new relationships and experiences, I’ve required myself to muster the courage to operate from a place of simplicity. I have found myself saying to people that life is simple, but living simply is hard. The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is less stress, less excuses, and many other things that cause consternation and anxiety. This amounts to standing at the top of the waterfall and leaping instead of debating and pacing around. Once it’s over - it’s over. No lies, no stories, no excuses - you just get to move to the next task at hand.

I have found myself saying to people that life is simple, but living simply is hard.

The hardest part about all of this is the emotion - the things we hold tightly and are fully engrained. When life is simple, it creates an incredible BS💩 meter. I find myself making excuses. I have to unpack them all the way down to the core of all that’s circulating in my head. Here’s an example that’s work related:

I have a lot of spinning plates going. One day, when I was going over open items, I realized I had let a series of tasks related to one particular project atrophy. My brain instantly kicked into gear - “I’ve just been super busy.” “I’m going to get to it but I needed to make it a lower priority.” “If the client isn’t worried about it, then neither am I.” If you can’t smell the BS, then you’re just at the beginning of your journey. After unpacking it and not giving myself room to make excuses for piss poor performance, I found myself at one simple reality — I was not driven to do the tasks because I wasn’t convinced of the merits or motivation for why I was doing the project in the first place. Or even more simply — I no longer was interested in it at all. I lacked courage to communicate it, or at least finish with grace and move on. Instead, I just de-prioritized and did like a lot of folks do — hope it goes away.

This example is probably rampant in people’s work lives, but it’s also a harsh reality of dating and friendships too. Thinking through the abundance of stories I’ve heard from both male and female friends, it struck me how plugged in I was to their drama prior to changing my thinking. Don’t get me wrong, I love digging into a story and thinking through things with friends. But, I’m afraid I’m less interesting over cocktails now because my thinking tends to move people towards answers when they’re more inclined towards circling the drain on a topic for weeks and months at a time.

Last example, you’re dating a person and everything is amazing except one or two things that are just gnawing at you. There’s no practical example here but thinking about the general details friends give me such as “he/she doesn’t think in ‘we’ terms,” although it’s been six or more months into an all encompassing relationship. Or, one person will always prioritize his/her time over everything else when it comes to the partner. Hell🔥, I had my issues with this one as well. We can all work towards better collaboration, communication and a slew of other things. The problem with change is that someone else can’t convince you to do it. You have to decide to change (or your partner). If both people aren’t willing to be what the other partner needs, then stalled progress is inevitable. When I said I’m boring over a cocktail, I simply mean that after we unpack a relational (interpersonal) problem there’s only two real things that can happen:

1. Address the problem collaboratively with both people wanting to make a difference for the good of the relationship. Or…

2. Continue to make excuses and give consolation prizes for never really being what one another needs and wants.

The latter is the negative cycle we often find ourselves in with romantic partners but can be reworded to work for our jobs, friendships, etc. The first is a solvable problem that takes time and effort. But what often comes out over these cocktail conversations is that one person feels completely on a different page from their partner and that’s even after stressing the issue and trying to get them to work together on fixing it. The simple but hard thing to do - move on. Your partner is making a choice, albeit not stepping up and saying it outright. You have to make a choice as well, happiness or stagnation.

I’m writing today as a reflection on having the courage to keep it simple. I love keeping others happy but there’s a realization that it all has to start with me. What’s the point of doing a favor for a friend if I’m going to resent them for it later? What’s the point of staying in a relationship because I’ve fell in love with the fantasy, instead of accepting the reality of the toxicity? I can ask a number of these questions and it all comes back to self-acceptance and courage (among other things you’ll appreciate if you read the book). Remember, living simple and happiness is a choice.

As I crack tonight’s beer, here’s a cheers to anyone walking along this path looking to demonstrate some more courage in their own happiness journey. Another cheers if I’ve piqued your interest enough to buy the book and begin the journey with me. See you soon.