“What defines us is not our ability to withstand the storm, but our willingness to dance in the rain ”
In 2024, I learned to embrace chaos and a resolute selection of a road less travelled. 2025…is going to suck.
I’d like for you to keep reading so I’ll tell you upfront that this is not an essay about despair. I’m not asking you to spend the next few minutes reading “Woe is me”. Instead, what I’m writing about is a reframing of the inevitable struggle as desirable.
This is not a new idea. Many people have said it in many ways, and an argument can be made that I could simply tweet: “Choose courage over comfort” and save you all some reading. What, however, makes it necessary for me to write this is that it seems (fairly recently?) the idea of ease and aversion to suffering has begun to preponderate (today’s Word of The Day) the idea of hard work. A second disclaimer: I’m not advocating suffering for the sake of suffering. However, many things in life gain a significant aspect of their value from the difficulties navigated in attaining them.
First, a bad pun. My son will be born any day now, and he’s about to do a lot of sucking… Forgive me, I’m not yet a dad, and my dad joke game is weak. Please keep reading. And right here is a primary reason that this year will suck. I will be spending the next few months/years/decade becoming a father. Sleepless nights. Dirty nappies. Pee in my face…you get my drift. There is an easier path. I could outsource all the hardest parts. But there is a vital bond that is fortified in the struggle. In the times when I hold him to my chest at 3am and he is comforted by my smell and I by his. I cannot imagine the harmony it would bring right now, but I cannot fathom missing out on it.
Maybe I’m just a romantic.
But I apply the same framing to the many new things I’m going to try (and fail at) this year. 2025 will be a year in which I will attempt several things I’m grossly un(der)qualified for. ’Cause why not? I’m completely unqualified to be someone’s dad (see failed dad joke above), but I’m still going to do it. What could be scarier than an entire life in my hands?
Embracing the Suck
Iread somewhere that one of the greatest sources of despair is the belief that things should have been easier than they turned out to be. We often wholly ascribe to talent what was achieved primarily by industry and then declare ourselves inept when it becomes apparent we cannot match those achievements without effort. This is not entirely our fault. Struggle appears rare by design. Athletes train for hours every day for months and years to make a 30-second routine appear natural and effortless.
“Art lies in concealing art” — Horace
We start to believe that we are no good at it if we have to try. We give up because we didn’t expect the events to be so difficult and take that as proof that we have no value to add.
What if we took the opposite approach? What if we expected it to suck? What if we knew that we would have to muddle through? What if we knew all of this and chose to do it anyway? What if we embraced the suck?
My Perspective Shift
Afew weeks ago, I wrote about my own experience with muddling through. What I didn’t talk about then was that I never expected the challenge to be as tricky as it was, and as a result, I nearly quit halfway through. I was fortunate because, for some reason I can’t explain, I became defiant and decided that I would complete the challenge if it killed me. I had no choice then but to embrace the suck and drag myself over the finish line. I learned in that moment, though, that much of my suffering was due to a firm resistance to doing a difficult thing, and if I could accept early on that I was about to undergo a trial, I would be rid of half the struggle.
So, here are five or six things that I’m going to suck at in addition to wrangling and entertaining an infant:
Launching new products and ventures, failing and pivoting.
Moving my family to a new country
Writing regularly
Training for and running a half marathon
Speaking in public
I just turned 40, so, prostate exam?
I am always immensely grateful to anyone who stays with me to the end. Thank you for reading. I would love to hear about your scary, hairy goals for 2025 and anywhere you will be embracing the suck.
As a token of my thanks, here’s an excerpt from a sixteen-year-old poem:
…And then comes the storm
Scaring religious old ladies with its intensity
Frightening them with it’s unpredictability
Causing those who understand to smile
To laugh, to go dancing in the rain
As always,
Deji