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The Long Road To Mastery

I want to put my fist through the computer screen, hours spent with mentally grueling assignments pushing me past my limits and I find myself facing writer’s block once again. I feel like a complete mental defective sometimes, trying to figure out what I think “should” be easy to understand.  Memories of quitting a job that drained my soul, just so that I could be in that place once again. Demoralization kicks in as I contemplate the option of failure to end the suffering, but something inside of me won’t allow it. I find that as I get older nothing in life worth having is easy. Dedication to succeed in any area forces an intensity of willpower and concentrated effort that is very difficult to maintain. If I’m not going to finish school, then I need to go back to full time work, but I am not willing to do that either.

         If I want to write quality content, I must be willing to explore new and unfamiliar territories that may not resonate with my audience, yet I still have to keep my audience that I’ve cultivated in mind to a certain extent. Finding new ways to push my writing further than it has ever gone is taxing in its own way. Every path forward that I see feels long, fraught with the pain of growth and the desire to “never settle for average. Like hard candy, the sweetness comes with the pain. I feel as though I might as well be chewing with glass teeth. Sometimes I think the only hope we have is to learn how to accept the process. Realizing or at least believing that it will somehow be worth the pain some day, but we don’t have any guarantees. If we’re going to suffer for something whether it be a passion project, our professional work or even school, it might as well be in the service of something we love, right?

        Imagine that version of yourself that doesn’t exist yet and ask “What would it take to bring that person into reality?”. Tighten those fists, save them for another occasion, they weren’t meant for this! It fucking sucks when you find yourself backed up against a wall but you have to believe that what you will earn is the prize of at least realizing you had what it took to see something through until the end. If you can do that much you will probably earn some self-respect. Does that by itself make going through a long, drawn-out process worth it? I think that’s the other side of the issue that forces serious inner reflection and consideration. If you run away now, you’re only running away from yourself and the hope that anything will ever change for the better. When we were children it may have felt easier to simply walk away from something after losing the slightest hint of interest. Today as adults, grown men and women, we are challenged to finish the things that we start. As always, the freedom to choose to let go at any point is always there, but with that choice comes a lack of satisfaction and perhaps growth. Another dead corpse in a graveyard of failures!

         Will you die trying or live failing? If there’s no failure, there’s no challenge! I like high stakes, I enjoy risk taking and while I too sometimes wonder “Will this be worth its weight in gold later on?”, I have to admit that I am still driven to go after the dreams that seem to promise some kind of reward. Even when the process itself isn’t fun. I’m bound to be a hypocrite on occasion as I preach here about effort. Another angle worth investigating that further complicates matters; “Am I engaging in the sunken cost fallacy or am I continuing because I see value down the road?”. If you’re engaged in something that can be deeply competitive in which there are many out there who are likely better than you at your chosen craft, it can be easy to feel defeated before you ever begin. First, accepting your position as being lower on the totem pole of perhaps millions of others who are in the same lane as you is the best place to start. This by no means is justification for lack of improvement, but simply a grounded and realistic way to face reality. Further, figure out how you can do something with your unique brand and flavour that can’t be replicated. Sometimes a mess is still beautiful in its messiness because it refuses conformity and neatness.

Inner Tension & Self-Doubt

People may experience the physical symptoms of frustration in their own way but common places might be clenching of the jaws, tight hunching of the shoulders, tensing of arm muscles, eyebrows pulling down and or even eyelids forcing intense squints. I feel a combination of all of these when I try to exert myself past my limits emotional and mental limits, but weirdest of all I feel this strange tension in my lower stomach and groin. My body abuses itself as it burns calories and sweats, wracked with intensity and painfully engaged in a mentally strenuous activity. My brain feels like its internal thermostat turns up the heat to a thousand degrees, sweat dripping into the eyes and burning the soul. Distracting, forcing the issue, refusing to stop reacting to the internal pressure building within.

The human spirit experiences pain just as much as the body does and no one can tell me any differently! Taking breaks only relieves the pressure that is sure to return, so I reason that I might as well work through it since there’s no eliminating the agony from my emotional diet. A quick stretch, a crippled walk around the office, perhaps a water or a coffee break but no reprieve can save me from the truckloads of stress hitting all at once. I have no choice but to work through it, there is no escape. I hit my vape pen a few times more than I normally would, inhaling deeply. I throw in a Zyn pouch or if the mood calls for it, a giant pinch of Cophenhagen or Grizzly wintergreen to help me see it through ‘till the end. Back when I had a full time job the stress was different. There was no larger aspiration being fulfilled with each passing day, it was simply “Can I make it through another day just for the money?”. Instead of facing the rigorous, never ending war to remain employed, I’d much rather deal with the heat of mental strain and emotional stress that comes with going back to school.