Have you ever…quit a diet, a course of yoga, a meditation practice?…Have you ever wanted to be a mother, a doctor, an advocate for the weak and helpless…Have you experienced a vision of the person you might become…Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture?
The War of Art, Kindle location 86
Then you know what Resistance is.
Resistance shows up in all areas of life. It shows up for me in many places. I’m a teacher who doesn’t (formally) teach. I am a wanna be dad. I sit and stew many days, having thoughts, but executing on very few.
Personally, I want to see the end from the beginning. Working and banging my head against a wall, without knowing how thick it is or what is behind is doesn’t sound like fun.
I tend to run return on investment calculations in my head quite frequently. I focus on when I will accomplish the BIG thing I want. Often this big thing is not possible within a few months (hunting elk, implementing a CRM, influencing a child’s life, altering the course of a company), and I begin to tire of the struggle after a short while.
I chalk this up to general impatience, to the fact I’m not leveraging things correctly. Rather than staying put and working on myself and personal strength and discipline, moving around is often the answer.
(FWIW, I don’t move around jobs like most GenZ does. But I do experience frustration and burn out if I don’t see significant progress quickly.)
In the end, all of this is yielding to Resistance. To the forces that simply take more sustained effort, more exertion, more strength and power to overcome.
Sisyphus pushes a stone up the mountain eternally because he eventually stops believing he will ever get to the top and may be able to rest when he arrives. On reducing effort (succumbing to Resistance), he loses control of the stone and it rolls back down to the bottom.
You’d think he gets stronger; more familiar with the route, the height; or more able to push through. But it’s a myth, it’s not meant to reflect all the confusion and compounding issues of life.
But how often do I reflect that attitude? How often do I give in to Resistance just as it’s about to get easier? We never truly know.
And that’s why sitting down and doing is the answer to winning resistance today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Today is what needs to be won. So I practice. And sit to write and to reflect, knowing that over time, the war is won through compounding effects, not in a day, not in a skirmish, not in a battle.