Merely Indifferent
When things are difficult and circumstances are unfolding in ways that run contrary to your desires or expectations, you are likely to experience internal discomfort. It may also be the case that things have been this way for a while, and you begin to wonder whether you will ever catch a break.
Then the doubts arrive, and your mind spirals into negativity, perhaps even anguish, as you try to piece together why your circumstances are unfolding the way they are. It can feel as though the entire cosmos is conspiring against you, erecting obstacle after obstacle to prevent you from reaching your goal, despite the effort you have put in.
We have all been here at some point, in the pursuit of something we care deeply about. We hope for auspicious conditions, a clear path, and minimal resistance, but things rarely unfold the way we anticipate.
More often than not, they unfold in precisely the way we least expect.
The truth is that the external world does what it does, and we have no control over it. We may wish we could eliminate every obstacle or engineer our environment to be frictionless, but life is indifferent to those wishes. Things happen that you did not plan for. That is simply the nature of it.
When things start going awry, you may feel compelled to give up, citing how hostile the world seems toward your goals and dreams. But here is what is difficult to see when you are in that low place: the world has nothing against you.
It is merely indifferent.
What tends to happen is that we attribute excessive weight to the challenges we face, inner or outer, distorting their actual severity in the process.
And so it comes down to perception. If you perceive the world as cruel and harsh, your mind will be tuned to difficulties, amplifying their weight even in the thick of them.
But if you choose to perceive challenges differently, not as obstacles on your path but as inherent elements of the journey toward what you seek, your mind will orient accordingly.
It will not burn unnecessary energy by catastrophizing.
Instead, it will acknowledge the difficulty, choose to be at peace with it, and focus on the path forward rather than dwelling on the severity of what stands in the way.
This is not easy, by any means. It requires practice and conscious awareness. When you have taken brutal beatings and are in pain, the last thing you want to hear is that you have the option to see things differently.
Reframing your perspective is probably not even on the table when your mind is in anguish.
To that, I would say, let the steam out. It makes no sense trying to shift your perspective while you are clearly in pain.
But once the steam has cleared, take conscious note of what happened and practice next time. Don’t beat yourself down for not staying calm. You don’t need to add any more trouble to yourself.
Over time, you will notice the difference. You will begin to see that the universe is not trying to get you.
When you start seeing obstacles as part of the journey rather than interruptions to it, you begin to recognize how essential they are in shaping who you become.
Think back on the goals you have already accomplished. The memorable ones, the ones that actually mean something, are almost always those in which struggle was present, and you found a way through it.
Your success is more precious precisely because of what it cost you.
Ask successful people which period of their lives they valued most, and rarely will they point to the present, when things are comfortable. Most will tell you it was the time spent in the trenches, figuring things out, grinding through uncertainty, and learning to overcome.
Some even grow miserable once they have become so capable that nothing challenges them anymore.
The worthy opponent disappears, and with it, the aliveness that difficulty once provided.
I have felt this myself.
I look back with genuine fondness on the times I was struggling, when I was deep in the pit, failing repeatedly, sometimes sinking into despair, but having to summon the courage to try again anyway.
In the midst of all that effort, growth was happening within me even when I could not feel it.
It only became clear once the storm had passed.
The world was still taking care of me, embedding the very software I needed to overcome what stood between me and what I sought. The harsh circumstances were teachers. They were not out to get me.
This is why I believe you should not limit the scale of the goals you pursue. Go after the grand ones. Shoot for the stars. Best case, you win. Worst case, you lose.
But in both cases, you learn, and that may be the most valuable thing that could happen to you.
Abandon the excess importance you place on your flaws and the weight you inflate your external problems with. Remember that the world is merely indifferent.
Rather than exhausting yourself trying to engineer favorable circumstances, turn your attention inward. Through deliberate practice and conscious awareness, you will come to see that struggles exist not to break you, but to forge you.
We appreciate the day because of the night, summer because of winter, and light because of darkness. Our struggles merely do the same.
Take joy in their existence.