Nothing in life is as sweet as solving a problem and being rewarded for it!
If you’ve lived long enough, you’ve found that the best of gifts begin to seem less fun, less thrilling, and less shiny if we do nothing to continually earn them.
When something is just handed to you, your natural reaction over time is to devalue it. You lose site of why it was ever important or what continually must go into it for you to receive it.
It’s just not special to you anymore.
As a service provider, product maker, or creator of any message of worth, this is not where you want to end up in the eyes of your tribe – those you help.
One of my mentors used to be fond of saying,
Can’t give ’em too much. You’ll make ’em sick.
He was referencing the need to stay reserved in how much free help we offered.
This was so we wouldn’t devalue ourselves in the eyes of the recipients or spoil them into thinking everything would always be free, thereby bleeding us dry, but it applies here.
If you like junk food or fast food and were to eat as much of it as you wanted, you’d soon grow to hate it.
All of us who’ve survived our twenties know that endless partying looks great in the beginning but eventually leads to misery.
And those of us who’ve been married or in a relationship with the same person for any great length of time know that even sex can become commonplace or a nuisance, if we can access it at will.
All of these things can still bring us great joy but not if they’re bulk of what makes up our day
How many miserable, depressed, or deranged rock stars or celebrities have you read about who’ve had it all, then destroyed themselves because of it?
They got comfortable. They lost their fight.
They no longer see anything worth pursuing with a gusto, since everything now comes so easy to them.
In order to remain healthy and happy, you need to have a goal which you are constantly striving to complete.
To reach completion is going to require you to regularly evolve as new problems and unforeseen hurdles arise to stop you.
And when you finally accomplish that goal, the victory is sweeter than any of the fun things mentioned above and for a greater length of time.
Not to mention, you can still reward yourself with all those things above as a gift for succeeding at your mission! (If you so choose.)
Like a road trip, the journey is often more fun that the arrival.
I’ve been all over this country and visited a few others.
I’ve had mind blowing fun at my various destinations but I was usually the most excited as we made our way to wherever we were going.
The open road offers nothing but surprises, challenges, and mysteries.
You’re on the open road as you build your online presence
One day, hopefully with my help, you’ll arrive at the place all this work has made possible.
It will be sweet and its glow will last quite awhile.
But what you had to overcome to get there is what will burn brightest in your memory, long after the victory dinner.
The photographer of this post’s featured photo: Jelleke Vanooteghem
