I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the things that we put up with because we know the result at the end of the day makes it worth it. Every single one of us does things, sometimes on a daily basis, that we don’t necessarily want to do, but we know it’s worth it. I mean seriously, who genuinely likes using a stair stepper? I can think of a hundred other things that are a lot more fun and a lot more fulfilling than that. However, I like the way that my legs look when they’re toned and I know that cardio is good for my health. So despite the fact that I basically hate, loath and despise my stupid little stair stepper, I still use it . . . occasionally . . . when I have new Netflix that I can watch while stepping. But what happens when the end no longer justifies the means?
Maybe your priorities or goals change, or maybe, like in my instance, you decide that the crap just isn’t worth it, regardless of what the payoff might be. It seems obvious to me, that at that point it is time for a change. It is time to make changes and probably drastic ones. But there is something so alluring and safe to the familiar. Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t. After all, your new destination might be worse than where you are now. So you put up with more crap. You say that you’ll fix it tomorrow, you’ll make changes later, you’ll look for a new job next week. In the mean time you carry on, business as usual, putting up with more and more crap until finally that proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back falls.
Have you ever noticed that there is always a straw, always a breaking point? And it is rarely something big or noteworthy, it is generally something small. I can’t think of a single time in my life when a feeling of disquiet, of discontentment, didn’t finally end in some straw falling that finally propelled me to action. I’ve never sat back and said, “You know what, I don’t absolutely love my job, I’m going to actively fix that.” I’ve always allowed myself to be just shy of content, just shy of happy because it could always be worse. Or I think that I should be grateful for everything that I do have. Trust me, I remember when I didn’t have a job at all! So I stay where I am until that proverbial straw falls, pushing true happiness aside. Which really leads me to question why happiness isn’t at the top of my priority list. It should be. It should be above everything else!
I would like to say that I didn’t have to wait for a straw to fall. I would like to say that happiness is #1 on my list. But this morning there was definitely a straw and I honestly question whether happiness even makes the top ten of my list right now. So I’m going to make changes, the first of which is rearranging my priority
list. I don’t know that happiness will be #1 – I’m going for realistic goals here – but this time around, it is going to at least make the top ten. Along with using that stupid stair stepper more often . . .