The best things in life

I’m 23 years old and still relatively inexperienced, so for me to come on here and say I know all about what’s good and bad in life would be hypocritical. But there have been a few life lessons laid in front of me and one of them in particular has stuck out to be recently.

Looking at a slightly bigger picture of life, it sure seems like the best things in life are things that take time to achieve. They are things that take a lot patience, will-power, and hard work to get. That’s why healthy food doesn’t taste good, and why you can’t just do a few push-ups a day and be in good shape. That’s why tobacco and alcohol are really bad for your body, and pornography is so bad for your mind. Most things that give quick satisfaction are bad for you in the long run, and most things that are good for you in the long run don’t provide much instant gratification. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

The life lessons that we all learn take time. There are very few things that we understand naturally and quickly, which is why those understandings are so valuable when you find them. Malcolm Gladwell said it takes 10,000 hours of working in a field to achieve mastery in it. Just because someone says something like that doesn’t make it true, but it’s largely accepted, and really eye opening. What would the point of life be if you could just get everything you want super easily? Would you really have any appreciation for anything? Would you ever be able to have real passion for anything? Absolutely not.

The more you think about it, the more true it becomes. If you live your life looking for gratification out of short-term things and quick fixes, you’ll never really get anything out of life. You’ll never be truly happy and you’ll always be relatively disappointed.

Commit to long-term goals, think before you act, and find something to work hard for. No matter what it is. Work towards something no matter how far off it seems, having a far off goal and doing whatever it takes to reach it is a sure fire way to really live a full life.

… or something like that, I don’t know