Struggle Well
The Turning Feral Daily Journal - Day 15
Day 15: Things that you envision and day dream about rarely come to fruition exactly as you imagined. In fact, more times than not what you dream about is always “the best case scenario.” Take for instance my scholastic wrestling career. I would dream about getting my hand raised at the end of every match, but the reality was that I would sometimes find myself staring up at the gym lights as a better prepared opponent pinned my shoulders to the mat. Rough.
The same goes for my transition out West. As I drove out, I dreamt of tilling my own land, holding the horns of my first elk, and living like Grizzly Adams… And, some of it came true, but not of it came about in the way I dreamed it would. You see, what most of my daydreams left out was the struggling and the many instances of “getting pinned” by the reality of this lifestyle. But, what I did have were the callouses built up over a lifetime of learning to “struggle well.”
This is a saying that I have heard in a few different iterations over my life, but most recently by the owner of Sorinex, Bert Sorin. He articulated the concept so well at an event I attended (appropriately coined “tough fest”) by coaching folks that things never go as you expect it to, and that, in essence, struggling well is our main job in life as humans. Struggle will come, things won’t be as you want, and how you grow as a person will be defined in those moments so you need to build a tolerance to suffering and learn to “struggle well.”
Check out the clip below to hear Bert’s quote on this at 1:01:
Daily Prompt: What areas of your life aren’t going as you planned? Are you handling them gracefully? If not, how can you begin to “struggle well?”:
Motivational Passage:
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
-Dale Carnegie
Rewilding Action: Pick an action that you have been avoiding to undertake and do it. Embrace the struggle that will come with it and overcome it. This could be joining a fitness routine, starting a new diet, cold emailing someone about that job — it doesn’t matter. Pick something, execute, and struggle well no matter the outcome.
***PSA***
I will be out for the next several days for the end of rifle elk season and the beginning of beaver/otter/marten trapping. I will pick up the daily journals once I am back.