>  INCITE IV

"Embrace the Grind"

“Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.” – Bertrand Russell

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The luxury of ease.  The aim of the endless middle.  The endless middle where delusion of self and others dominates.  Where pretense is bought and sold to mask incompetence.  Where manipulation and duplicity are not only tolerated but revered as tactical measures to rise to the top of the conventional think.

Ease in Life is an idealized concept.  There is no safe harbor from change, challenge, and resistance.  These relentless forces show up on the day no matter your age or station in Life.  And as it goes, you’re either able to take the actions necessary to overcome them in favor of external and internal well-being, or you’re not, and you’re forced to face the consequences associated with yielding to the resistance.

What is ideal is not what is real.  Moving through Life waiting for the optimal situation to manifest so that you can begin living the way that you really want to live, doing the things you really want to do, spending meaningful time with those you love and care for most, is an approach that produces a steady dose of insecurity, disappointment, and regret.

To choose current ease is to accept future regress and Pain.  To avoid the difficulties associated with creating and sustaining progress in any area of Life is to accept the harmful effects of non-competitiveness.  The choice is a common one.  If you intend to make it, expect fewer opportunities.  Expect relationships to contract and disappear.  Expect anxiety, doubt, anger, frustration, loneliness, and fear to take control of your mind.  Expect the internal environment to darken and meaning to shallow out. 

It is through daily adversity, not ease, that we progress.  It is through daily adversity, not ease, that we grow and prosper.  Embrace the grind of Life.  Wave it in, welcome it.  Come to know its normal course constants – change, challenge, and resistance – as a means to Joy.  Elevate above the noise and recognize the role resistance plays in the score.

The dynamic nature of the environment that we all live and operate in affords us opportunities to compete on the day.  And as we successfully respond we earn the value we seek.  We expand opportunity.  Relationships deepen and flourish.  Confidence finds reason and fuels internal drive.       

The luxury of ease is an illusion, a tease.  Bait set by the conforming mass to sustain company in misery.  A delusional approach to excuse away duty and accountability.  A license to stand on entitlement.  Avoid the construct altogether.  Freedom is an earned state of existence.  On the day, every day, for the duration.  No living thing is exempt.  Embrace the honor.