Why The Constant Struggle?
Yesterday’s Ladies’ Sip & Soul highlighted a question we all struggle with at one point or the other.
Whether in our parenting, in running a business, pursuing a goal or healing our inner world, why does it often feel like we are pushing a heavy weight uphill?
Why can’t we get through life and achieve our goals with a little less strain?
Why does it always feel like as soon as we get past one hurdle, there’s another layer to unpeel?
Why is that when we finally to achieve a level of calm, a new form of anxiety seems to take over?
From a psychological perspective, and through analyzing different Jewish texts, we came to understand that G-d designed the universe in a way that for the parts of life from which people derive the most durable and profound pleasure the person would be required to put in effort.
If I want money, I usually need to work;
if I want health, I need to work on my discipline, diet and exercise;
if I want happiness, I need to work on my anxiety and attitude;
if I want a good marriage and good relationships with my family, I need to work on myself daily.
If I want to attain deep spiritual and emotional growth, I need to challenge my resistance and be more open and vulnerable.
And while a free ride and an easily achieved handout might often be appreciated, research shows that the joy of the free gift does not match up to the longer lasting and more intense pleasure of a hard earned goal.
Think about the student, the artist, the engineer, the scientist, the business owner or the mom and their profound sense of achievement when they step back and view their handiwork, vs. the one who may have achieved the same end goal by way of a quick and easy shortcut.
It seems clear that the greater the challenge and effort, the greater the internal payoff.
But why?
Why couldn’t G-d, the all powerful creator, design us in a way where we feel perfectly satisfied and internally aligned with being a recipient?
Why couldn’t He have made us so that we feel wholesome pleasure and satisfaction with a free lunch?
Why design us in a way where struggle and intense effort is part of the formula for a meaningful and purposeful life?
For this we go beyond science to the spiritual dimension, for a beautiful and empowering understanding of why challenge is part and parcel of life.
The Rebbe once explained, that while certainly G-d, who is benevolent, merciful and the source of all goodness, could have easily created a world that is free of hardship, He instead gave us the ultimate goodness.
G-d gave man the ability to be closest to G-d; Not just to be a recipient of G-d’s goodness, but to become co-creators with Him.
He designed us in a way that we are ashamed to just remain a passive recipient and He infused us with the impulse and motivation to work hard so that we become the authors of our own biography. We are driven to be givers, creators, inventors and architects of our life and partners with the G-d in shaping the world’s destiny.
Indeed, “Man was born to toil” (Job 5:7), so next time you encounter external resistance or internal struggle don’t see it as a distraction or deterrent, but rather as your raison d’etre.
As a co-creator, every struggle you overcome, transforms darkness into light and challenge into purpose.
You are not a victim of the hurdle your encounter, rather your creator status allows you to convert it into a new reality.
G-d gave us the ultimate goodness. We don’t just watch things happen, we make things happen.
Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom.
