Most of us, in our perfection-obsessed society, do not share how we struggle. We dust ourselves off, clean up the scene, and share the end result — leaving the sweat and tears in the shadow. Whether we don’t want to be perceived as weak or we just don’t want to share the process, we are limiting our vulnerability, reducing our chance for real connection, and modeling to the world that true struggle is something to be ashamed of.
When we then face a struggle in our lives — the experience of hitting up against obstacles or difficulties and going through the pain inherent in growing — we think something is wrong with us. No one mentions that shit is hard; they just brag about their accomplishments and present the final result. Of course, this isn’t everyone, and it could not even be one’s intention, never the less, the systems present this phenomenon.
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The Struggle Is Real
We struggle for many reasons, and all of us struggle. That is if we are living – adapting, loving, and growing. I am particularly grateful for the occurrence of struggle. It not only keeps life interesting, but it also stretches our capabilities, expands possibilities, and gives us confidence in our resiliency.
Struggle to Survive
Let’s be real here for a moment. We live in hard times – the systems in our culture make it difficult for many people to escape the constant struggle of merely surviving. Sometimes it can feel like the world is against us, and we are pushing up against a large rock on a hill. This struggle has to do with money, working, and supporting ourselves and our families. This form has to do with external struggle. It’s like Drake’s song, “Started from the bottom now we here….” Our society doesn’t talk about the internal struggle as much, so let’s get into what that looks like.
Struggle to Grow Up & Down
There is going to be struggle as we learn how to be in the social world. Growing up is hard. It requires one to change often in order to adapt to one’s surrounding. From this explanation, we can see how people grow up differently because they live in different areas of the world, in different circumstances, and in different environments.
I conceive character growth as growing down where one becomes more wise, humble, kind, etc. This also is connected with the struggle mentioned below – to be ourselves.
Struggle to Heal
Many of us come from dysfunctional families to varying degrees. No family is the same, but it seems each one has its issues. There is going to be struggle as we heal not only our wounds but our parent’s wounds and our culture’s.
“Children live the unconscious problems of their parents, and there is no avoiding this, regardless of good intentions….”
Edward Whitmont
Struggle To Be Ourselves
Every day we approach edges where we learn more about ourselves and what is needed for our growth toward who we are here to be. It is a growth of character, of meaning, of purpose. It is a journey of finding which edges we want to converge around and which ones we want to surpass.
We are raised into a family, into a community, and into a culture that have all these ideas and thoughts about who we should be and what we should do. Duhh, there is going to be struggle as we differentiate ourselves from this concoction.
When parts of our identity stretch to the point of ripping, and we are left to put the pieces back together, this leaves us wobbling with fear and uncertainty. Whether this is done intentionally or involuntarily, we fall over the edge into a space we cannot foresee.
Within the internal struggle, we must not hold too tightly for we are a passenger on this flight, and there are many other factors involved in determining where we go. I’m not saying to let go entirely, sometimes you have to fight over who has the wheel, but if you are surviving, you can afford to loosen your grip. The struggle to be ourselves inevitably is wrapped up with experiencing a higher power.
Suffering
The idea of struggle I’m using here denotes that space right before suffering. We could describe it as one facet of suffering. If we do not allow conflict within ourselves or we insist on a particular way that isn’t working, there is the chance of suffering. Suffering seems to be a constant or chronic struggle where the circumstance calls for deepening the pain experience. Struggling and suffering are vital to our growth.
“I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering – but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.”
James Baldwin
Now sometimes there is just nothing we could have done differently to prevent suffering. Maybe it is an external reality that you were placed in a shitty body, or a shitty family, or a shitty country. Maybe your “purpose” or “who you are meant to be” requires you to suffer. Whatever the reason is, it’s beside the point. We all suffer and must suffer from time to time.
It is suffering that provides enough pressure to facilitate the adaptation needed toward both our external life and our inner world. By this I mean, sometimes in order for us to change we need to suffer deeply. Often, this is what wakes up to our deeper callings and meaningful truths.
Embrace It For Vitality
For healthy living, one must embrace the struggle. It is your friend, truly, even if it is disguised as a villain, monster, or devastation. It will make you a better person, a stronger person. When we do not allow it, at least slightly, we risk deeper suffering. We risk not growing and not adapting to our circumstances.
In our western society, we don’t always strive for a healthy life. Okay, well we do, but the way we think and attempt to get there leads to more problems. The pursuit of happiness, the American dream, Positive Psychology, and even the Law of Attraction have really fucked a lot of us up in many ways. I couldn’t possibly get into all them here, but we will touch on them. Of course, the overall ideas inherent to these have validity and purpose.
For instance, happiness is apart of life and should be a pursuit. It gets mucky when we believe our happiness is more important than our struggles. When we bury our relationship problems, our insecurities, our weird desires in the name of happiness, we are setting ourselves up for disruption, for our lives do not revolve around a steady stream of happiness. Buried shit doesn’t stay there for long — it erupts as, what psychologists call, a neurosis. This is due to the balancing act that occurs within our overall psyche (the equilibrium dynamic between the conscious ego and the unconscious).
The fact is everyone who is on the pursuit for happiness is struggling. Why is this? Well, we are not happy all the time; happiness is a particular mood, in which there are many of them. So we struggle to continue that pursuit. We can replace happiness with many things, for example, sexual satisfaction, success, or belonging. As we insist on a particular desire, object, or goal, we unknowingly create struggle.
When we deny, avoid, or repress struggle, we create another layer of suffering.
But when we face it, explore it, and observe why it is we are struggling we can learn how to overcome it. Sometimes overcoming it means learning that the path you’re on is not the path for you. With the example above on the pursuit of happiness, we may realize that happiness is not a sufficient or adequate goal. Such irony. When we embrace the struggle, we dissolve it, allowing the possibility for a deeper meaning.
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
Philosopher Kahlil Gibran
Through the trial of untangling our suffering, we surrender to what is, whether that is external circumstances or inner characteristics. We learn something about ourselves and awaken to our deepest truths.
-Kristina
Cover photo by Andrei Lazarev