There is a difference between hearing something and knowing something. First I thought there was only one secret sauce to the game of life. To work harder. Turns out there is a second one, which I've totally overlooked. Patience. It's obvious and also not so obvious at the same time. My mind crumbles at the thought of eternity. A hard workout gets insanely harder when you don't know when the end is going to come, if ever. Now imagine that same scenario but times that a decade or more. That's how long you are going to have to be patient for. It's not an exactly number but a rough ball park. It could easily double, life being an unpredictable rock that it is. The thing is, it only works when combined with the work.
Fears
One of my fears or questions that makes me quit has been, "What if I put all this effort and I get nowhere?" The irony is that, I guaranteed failure but quitting. The only failure is to quit. Pick a path and just go for it with everything that you have got. New paths will emerge, you'll evolve, see opportunities that you never knew existed.
It's probably why this piece of wisdom hits home for me. The trick is quite simple, throw out a timeline. It's a hack for unlimited patience. It takes what it takes. As soon as focus shifts from what you have to do in this moment a whole lot of pain and doubt creeps in. They will from time to time, probably why I like to remind myself by writing about it. Don't ignore the pain, dive straight in, it's helped save a lot of pain later.
It's not about capability either, if you suck right now it's only because you haven't had a chance to do all the reps yet. You are only in set twenty of one thousand. Check back in later.