How much time do you spend scrolling through social media looking at people whose lives you envy?

People post up the positive snapshots in their lives and you start asking yourself what they’re doing that you’re missing. 

“What do I need to do to get to that level of happiness?”

“Why does that guy have a six-pack?”

“How is this guy crushing it in his business?”

“Why does this guy look like he has a perfect family?”

“How did this guy buy his dream home?”

This applies to your reboot, too. Men start setting benchmarks at points where they think they’ll reach happiness. Whether it’s 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, even a year, they apply timelines and limits to being happy. 

Why do people do this?

I think it has to do with the rush that we’re always in. Everyone is trying to get wherever it is they’re going faster. We’re rushing to a place where we believe we’ll finally be happy and free of pain, where the grass is greener than the spot we’re currently standing in.

I hate to break it to you, brother, but that’s not really possible.

Sure, there are hundreds of moments in your life that are going to leave you feeling happy beyond measure. You’re going to experience incredible moments of joy and bliss as you move through your life. But those moments of joy also come at a price. 

Why?

Because life is 50-50.

For every positive aspect of your life, every little bit of happiness, it’s going to balance out with something that we would label as bad or negative. It’s one of those painful universal truths; you cannot have happiness without balancing it out with sadness.

The beauty of the 50-50 concept, though, is that for every sad moment you’ll also experience a happy moment. Just as sadness is inevitable, happiness is also always possible if you maintain the right outlook.

I don’t mean to be a downer today but this is something that I’ve had on my mind lately. We all rush to reach certain goals or milestones or aspirations, but at one point or another, we’re going to experience the opposite. Pain is inevitable and difficulties are going to arise, brothers. Rushing through these experiences denies you of all the things you can learn.

There will always be experiences to learn from that set you up for the future. Trying to rush through the pain only elongates the process. Instead, learn to sit with the difficult times and the emotions that come from them. You’ll always come out stronger on the other end when you refuse to rush through the battles in life.