Hello again!
If you haven’t done so already, please do read:
Part One
Of this series - otherwise today’s post likely won’t make all that much sense!
Today we are going to deepen our exploration around why we seek for the ‘perfect’ or ‘easy’ way forward, and how this can stop us from making progress. We are going to look at how we support ourselves in walking our path even when it’s difficult, and how we can work WITH the challenges of life instead of resisting them, so that we can get where we want to go.
Why Looking For ‘Easy’ Or ‘Perfect’ Stops Progress
From here, we are going to realize that we are likely going to be ‘looking for the easy way’ or looking for the PERFECT way, as we progress towards change.
Again, as intelligent beings, we are always on the hunt for whatever is going to give us the MOST amount of outcome for the LEAST amount of effort.
This isn’t a flaw or failing in us, this isn’t something to be ashamed of nor is it a trait we should have any qualms with in general because at the end of the day, it’s part of our intelligence! Looking for the simplest path to any desired outcome is a really SMART thing to do.
Looking for the perfect way is often something we are doing to try to protect ourselves from pain and ridicule - believing that if we just figure everything out before-hand, that we can walk our way into our new reality scar free and without having to look like we don’t know what we’re doing - and this often just leads us to never taking any steps at all because like we explored above, the chances that we are GOING to be able to figure out our path to somewhere we’ve never been before BEFORE we walk it is pretty unlikely.
The problem arises when the reality we are facing is one where there’ ISN’T an *easy* path.
When we are facing a path that is simply hard, there’s going to be a tendency in most of us to accidentally stall ourselves and our progress. We’re going to do this via not taking steps, not moving forward and not doing the inevitable hard work that’s ahead of us, because we are going to get stuck looking for the EASY way.
We’re going to be looking for the simple solution we think should exist, trying to simplify the options we can see, trying to figure out where that path of least resistance is and looking for the ‘easy’ button - and this is going to lead to us again being distracted from the work we actually have to do to get ourselves where we want to get.
We are going to try to intellectually figure everything out before we start, and we’re going to get lost in the mental gymnastics of other people's opinions, what is ‘right and wrong’ and all the contradictory information we’re likely to get as we try to ‘figure it all out’ from ground zero.
In the spirituality and self help world, there can be a lot of support for this idea that when we are ‘doing the right thing’ or ‘following our right path’ that this will mean that there will be a ‘flow’ to life. That this will mean that there should appear on our path a way forward that’s gentle, easy and ‘for us’ in some way.
We are often told that to push, to fight, to strive or to try to MAKE things happen means that we’re going the wrong way, and that what’s ‘for us’ will come to us without having to exert this kind of effort.
We’re told that if we are fully following our ‘guidance’ or ‘intuition’ that we will be able to glide forward into our new lives with no setbacks or confusion.
This can lead us to believing that if we have to strive, push or go the hard way, that this must mean we’re doing something wrong - and again it can lead to that tendency to get stuck looking for ‘the flow’ or the ‘path of least resistance’ when in reality, that path just doesn’t exist.
This can lead to us believing again that if something is hard, something doesn’t go smoothly, if we make mistakes or face challenges that require us to ‘fail’ before we succeed, that this means we’re ‘out of alignment’ or doing something wrong.
Now, I’m again all for not making life HARDER than it has to be. I think it’s always a great idea to look at where we can simplify, where we can streamline and where we can take actions and paths that don’t require us to give our all when we don’t have to. It’s also wise to do some research into what has worked for others who have walked a similar path to us, and it’s wise to do some learning before we start.
That being said, we also have to recognize that in real reality, there just isn’t always going to be an easy path, and that in real reality sometimes the things we need, the things that will make our lives better and the things we WANT simply are NEVER going to be achieved without grit.
That in real reality when we are going somewhere we’ve never been before - when we are looking to create changes we’ve never made before or haven’t been able to SUSTAIN before - that life is GOING to be different than what we expected and we are GOING to mess up, fail and make mistakes, not know and have to figure things out as we go.
Because we don’t live in a perfect, just, fair or equitable world where we are constantly being supported in having the best lives possible. We don’t live in a world where we can perfectly predict what’s going to happen, how it’s going to happen and what will be required of us.
Rather, we live in a world of social structures and harsh realities that sometimes mean what we want and what we need are behind a wall of challenge that is either man made or reality made - and getting to the other side of that wall is just going to be hard.
We live in a world of complexity where the only constant is change - which means we can never be fully prepared for anything.
Which sucks.
Which can be incredibly painful to accept especially when where we are is painful, and when where we want to go is made all that much harder to get to by SOCIAL structures that don’t actually HAVE to exist. When getting where we want to go requires that we go through challenges and face obstacles that we don’t understand and that cause us to fail even when we did as much prep as we possibly could.
Understanding that we live in an unjust world where not everyone has access to what they want and need, where we can be sick or otherwise physically or mentally lacking the tools we need to move forward, where we can lack the social support we need to make things better for ourselves or where we are actually antagonized by the social structures around us, where we may not have access to the things we need or want in order to make progress and so on is a HARD thing to understand and grasp - especially when we’ve been indoctrinated by the spirituality world into believing that all good things come to those who ‘are good’ or who ‘deserve’ it on some level.
But these beliefs need to be examined for where they can contain toxicity and where they can lead us to shame and guilt/distraction and away from real reality and our actual autonomy.
You see, when we are believing that we live in a just world that can be fully intellectually figured out, this can lead us to believing that if bad things are happening to us, if the path we want to walk to get to where we want to go is really hard, if there isn’t an easy way or if we’re facing resistance from the outside world, that this means that WE are bad, that WE aren’t worthy of having what we want, that WE need to change ourselves in some way to become ‘better’ or that we somehow DESERVE to be suffering/going without.
It can lead us to turning our focus inwards in a way that’s actually not productive or helpful - causing us to start to micromanage our emotions, thoughts, feelings or actions in a way that we think will make us more pleasing/worthy/deserving of care and support - when what we are facing isn’t due to our lack of worthiness or our lack of ‘goodness’ whatsoever.
To be convinced that if we are finding ease on our path this is some reflection of our worthiness or alignment and that if we aren’t that this is a reflection of our unworthiness or misalignment is a slippery slope that can lead to a state of victim blaming and shaming that is part of what keeps our systems of inequity and injustice going.
It can also just be a way we avoid the fact that life is hard, unpredictable and challenging sometimes and that this is no reflection on us - it’s just the way life is!
The idea that good people experience good things and bad people experience bad things is a trope that really just takes us out of our capacity to empathize with and care for others as well as ourselves. It takes us to a place where we look at those who are suffering due to lack of support, lack of resources, antagonism, lack of compassion and understanding and lack of access and we assume that their suffering is ‘really’ being caused by their general lack of WORTHINESS. This is dangerous and frankly, quite toxic.
Most of us don’t realize it but these kinds of beliefs really lead us to a state where we can be convinced NOT to be supportive of empathetic towards those who are really struggling in this life, because we have been trained to see those people as weak/flawed/out of alignment/bad/wrong on some level - and this again is part of how our system convinces us to divorce ourselves from our humanity. It can lead us to believe that if we perfect ourselves we will have a seamless experience - which then leads us to constantly feeling shame and guilt when life is life - complex, messy and painful sometimes.
This belief system can give us a false sense of security and hope as well. It can drive us to believe that bad things WON’T happen to us, that we can be sure that we will be safe and taken care of and that we are guaranteed to get what we want and need even if others don’t, so long as we remain being a ‘good’ person/get to a place of understanding and predicting everything right. It’s a belief system that can help us feel control and power in a world where we may not actually have the control and power we want - telling ourselves that so long as we are ‘one of the good ones’ or so long as we figure out the ‘perfect’ way, that those ‘bad things’ won’t happen to US is a great way to quell the existential fears of being alive on a planet where we don’t have total control over what happens to us.
This belief system that good things come easy to good people again will often keep us ignorant of the fact that our systems are set up in a way to support those who are already successful and who have power in our systems at the cost of those who don’t, and it will keep us complying with this system in ways that benefit us without us even being aware that this is what we’re doing.
This is not to say that we can’t have a belief in being supported by The Universe or God, and this isn’t to say that the path of least resistance/things being meant for us doesn’t exist. It’s just to say we want to make sure that this way of thinking DOESN’T lead us down a path of disconnecting from our empathy or making EVERYTHING about our ‘alignment’ instead of looking at actual reality, systems and what truly exists in the world around us.
We want to be aware that the path of least resistance teaching can be a lovely idea that IS true SOMETIMES - but that it’s not a be-all-end-all truth and that there are times and places where the hard road is the only road, and where that hard road exists because of circumstances beyond our control that are in no way a reflection of us, our worthiness, our goodness or our alignment - and same goes for everyone else.
We want to be aware that while we CAN plan and we CAN have an idea of what we need to do and be in order to move forward, that we will NEVER have it all figured out and that failure, challenge, falling down and having to figure things out as we go is ALWAYS going to be a part of ANY change journey - no matter how aligned or prepared we are.
We must look for BALANCE in this perspective, as with anything and everything.
Can you take a step back and examine where you may be holding onto the idea that a blissful, perfect way forward is available?
Can you take a step back and look at where you assume that challenge and failure mean that you’re doing something wrong/off track/not good?
Can you learn to question these beliefs?
Can you learn to open to the idea that challenge is GOING to be a part of your path, that failure is going to be a part of your path and that there’s no perfection in this life?
Can you go forward with this understanding vs. looking for the easy/perfect way and allowing that to stop you from walking the ACTUAL path?
Next, there are other reasons that we may seek for this path of least resistance even when that path doesn’t actually exist.
Sometimes this search for the easy way, the clear way, the path of least resistance with a guaranteed outcome is coming from our lack of faith in ourselves to navigate challenging things, to see ourselves through challenges and to trust that we can figure things out and be ok.
We might be feeling like if the path is hard, if there is only a challenging road option and like if getting where we want to go is going to require that we face obstacles we don’t know how to face right now that this means we CAN’T do it because we feel like we CAN’T do these things - of COURSE we’re going to stall ourselves looking for the option we think we CAN handle and be successful at.
Learning to LEARN on the path is HARD - especially in our society that tells us over and over again that ‘not knowing’ is a sign of weakness. Learning to learn is hard, especially in our society that has made failure a ‘bad thing’ instead of something to analyze and be informed by so that we can make better choices next time.
Learning to see the path ahead of us as an opportunity to expand our awareness of how reality works instead of seeing a bunch of obstacles that, if we don’t already know how to overcome we then CAN’T overcome them, is a BIG job - and one that requires that we learn to have faith in ourselves even as we are struggling, failing and generally falling down.
Which is hard! But it is a VITAL skill to learn on this journey of life.
You CAN figure things out. You CAN assess what happened when life didn’t go how you wanted it to, and use that information to help you move FORWARD. Failure, setbacks, challenges and the unknown don’t have to be a STOPPING point, and in fact they can and should be a STARTING point. They can be something you lean INTO and use to expand your skills and knowledge - and I want you to know that you are TOTALLY capable of that.
Don’t let the world tell you that not knowing is terminal, or that it means you’re failing or doing something wrong - in real reality, not knowing is just the beginning step towards knowing, and the more you give yourself the space and freedom to explore the unknown, the more you’re going to discover about your capacity.
Promise.
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Alright, we will take one more break here and come back next week for our final section!
<3
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