The same tenets stretch across much of life; the only way to grow is by struggling against resistance.
This rule applies in the gym, in your mental capacity, and your career.
You spend time deliberately practicing hard skills or lifting heavy weights to train your brain and body to become better.
Throughout every year, humans make progress.
Infants learn to crawl, walk, and run after several falls and bruises.
Kids learn how to work simple jobs, handle money, and deal with angry customers.
College students learn how to navigate relationships, pass classes, and discipline themselves without parents.
Adults must learn new skills or become obsolete, like the Kodak camera company, after the rise of digital photography.
Humans are wired to pitch a tent in their comfort zone. But if we camped out, we wouldn’t be able to walk or parallel park.
The opposition isn’t always bad.
Ask any writer about resistance from an editor. The criticism clarifies the piece, eases readability, and questions assumptions.
Resistance from coaches makes players better. A middle school basketball player may get away with shooting a ball from his chest for a few years until he plays in high school, where he’s blocked every time.
Friends questioning your motives (or a significant other’s) illuminates potential problems to which you may be blind to because you’re too close to the situation.
A college graduate who moved back in with his parents trashed most incentives to find work quickly because real life is scary.
You could get fired. Your roommate could ditch and leave you to pay all the bills. Your company could go bankrupt.
But there’s resistance and friction between all worthy projects.
It’s easy to stop writing and scroll through Facebook, or turn on your TV and binge-watch Netflix.
But it’s hard to write a book, market a product, and or rewire a house.
It’s easy to believe you’re a victim of circumstance in life and lay around waiting for someone to save you, whether that’s a politician, the government, or a significant other.
It’s hard instead to be a hero and triumph over your struggles.
Grab your cape and mask because no one is coming to save you.