week 7
“nothing worth having comes easy” —Theodore roosevelt
“I’ve always believed in you… but we seem to share the fate that nothing is easy for us.”
This is what my dad told me when we saw each other recently, the first time in several months. He’s not wrong. It feels like nothing has come easy for me and that I have to fight for everything, or at least go through severe growing pains to get where I want to go. I’m lucky, so very lucky, don’t get me wrong— I have a house I love, a happy marriage, a few close friends, a loving family. By being born where and how I was, I am richer than 99% of the world. I am relatively healthy and have health insurance. I do not have a disability and can move about a society that is largely not setup to support individuals with disabilities. I have enormous built-in privilege by my skin color, my income, my education. I have met people who have faced far greater challenges than I ever have, and seen those who have accomplished more while having less. I try to remember these facts every day and not take any of it for granted. I am enormously, incredibly lucky, and I did nothing to earn any of the head starts I’ve been given in life. I do not for a second want to make it sound like I am unaware or ungrateful of the gifts that have fallen in my lap.
Even with all the luck I’ve been handed, everything I attempt feels so hard. I have never felt like I could move about the world without being weighed down (by being underestimated? With self-doubt? I’m not even sure). I see family and friends go for things and often get them: jobs, partnerships, goals, having children. Nothing attainable through action has ever felt easy to me. It feels like I’ve had to put in an inordinate amount of effort to figure out things many others seem to do pretty easily— from making friends to taking tests to interviewing to dating to having kids. It feels like everything has been a giant mountain to climb. While I have been lucky enough to have been given all the necessary gear to climb it and a head start, I’ve often felt stuck. As I white-knuckle my way onward, I continuously watch others pass me, seemingly effortlessly, barely having to pause to catch their breath.
In fifth grade, I became obsessed with the idea of “talent,” and would spend hours praying for a talent or lamenting the fact that I didn’t have an obvious one. I dreamt of being a child prodigy— of what, it didn’t really matter. To be special was the goal. When I felt I couldn’t be special, I wanted to at least fit in. I’ve always been a “slow to warm up” kind of person, and I typically haven’t been able to quickly make a lot of friends or naturally join and move between social circles. Maybe that’s part of why for so long I’ve daydreamed about becoming fluent in other languages: a fantasy of fitting in no matter where I go.
It has recently occurred to me that maybe all of these struggles are really hidden gifts. If “nothing worth having comes easy,” and nothing comes easy, doesn’t it kind of mean that everything I have is worth having? Maybe not having much natural talent in any one given area has protected me from feeling pushed down a singular path. I can develop my capabilities with a lot of hard work, but not having one shiny thing to draw attention to me gave me the freedom to explore, rather than the pressure to perform. If little is expected of me, I can be free to try new things based on what is interesting and exciting to me.
And if fitting in is not easy or possible—if I’m not flexible enough to contort myself to be like others— maybe it offers me a shield from feeling like I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. Maybe not fitting in paves the way for me to find my way back to me. If I can do the work to find belonging within myself, I can authentically connect with others and belong with the people who truly matter. I’ll take belonging as my authentic self over “fitting in” any day.
I am trying to see the beauty in challenge, give gratitude to struggle, and feel the satisfaction of small progress.
The learning failure
My pronunciation is getting better, but man do my listening skills need some work! I had to play sentences over and over to be able to match the sentence to the picture, when I had to go just by ear and didn’t have the words listed in front of me. I am through the first week of the Rosetta Stone travel Spanish for beginners, “language basics.” I am enjoying the bite-sized lessons and have started speaking little bits of Spanish around the house: “buen chico, el perro,” I say to my dogs, (I’m sure lacking in pronunciation and grammar). I hope after a couple more weeks of lessons, I can start practicing speaking small bits of Spanish at work.
The progress failure
75 countries labeled, bringing me to 38%. Up from 28% last week!
The hard failure
Another failed round of trying to become parents, another round of staring down unpleasant medical tests in hopes of answers. But I am trying to be brave and seek help. I finally am getting multiple opinions from specialists and taking my overall health seriously, and not just health related to maternity goals. It has been really easy for me to stay in denial rather than facing the facts, especially with my fainting over blood and pain and general disgust over bodily functions. However, as hard as it can be to face possible bad news, if I don’t get help identifying the problem, I can’t get help determining the solution.
After writing this post, I found the full quote attributed to Theodore Roosevelt: Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
Thank you and happy failing!
Rachel