No B.S Friday: My friend was having relationship troubles, but I wouldn’t let him get away with that one.
Imagine I could get you to do just one thing that would set you up for life. (Me, Jon. Your fairy godmother.)
What would it be?
Get up earlier? Exercise more? Read more, study more? Kale smoothies and quinoa colonics?
No, it would be this.
I would make it so that every time you hit a roadblock, every time you got knocked back, you would say to yourself, “I am not willing to pay the price for this.”
That’s it. You just keep doing you. But the next time life throws some tyre-spikes in your path, rather than blaming the world or feeling sorry for yourself or accepting ‘no’ as the final word, you would simply say to yourself, “I’m not willing to pay the price for this.”
Everything has a price, and you’re willing to pay it or you’re not.
I was actually thinking about this after a conversation with my friend the other day. Without revealing any personal details, he was a bit grumpy because he and his wife hadn’t been having all that much sex lately.
And there’s reasons for that. They’re both working full time, there’s young kids in the picture, her health hasn’t been fantastic.
But he was in a bit of a grump. He was angry at a world that kept them so flat-out they didn’t have time for intimate time. And he was bitter at her for not craving physical intimacy the way he did.
So there seem to be some reasons to justify his sulky mood.
But I said to him, “You’re just not willing to pay the price for this.”
After he’d settled down and put down the bar stool, I explained that he knew what had to be done. His missus is burnt out, like most of us are. If he wants her to get physical, he knows he needs to lay the ground work. He needs to give her some kiddy-free time to relax and come back into her body. Maybe a bath and massage.
That’s the price. No arguing with it.
The point of recognising that there is a price is so we don’t give away our power. If we accept a no from the universe, it says that it’s all out of our hands. There’s nothing we can do. We have no power in the situation.
I don’t think that’s ever true unless we let it be true.
So there’s a price.
The question then is, are you willing to pay the price or not?
That’s your choice. It’s your responsibility.
You’re either willing to do what’s required, or you’re not.
And if you’re not you’re not. That’s totally ok. It’s totally reasonable to say that with everything else going on in my life, and in the hierarchy of my priorities, I’m just not willing to pay this price.
That’s ok. That’s still a statement of power.
But it’s with you then. It’s on you. You don’t get to blame the world or blame others because you can’t get what you want.
If you start blaming others or blaming the world, it’s admitting that you have no power in the world, and what do you think happens to your life if you admit you have no power?
Nothing good.
No, you have to stay in your power.
And if you’re feeling frustrated because you’re not getting what you want, you just have to recognise that everything has its price, and it’s always up to you whether you pay the price or not.
And this little mental shift is the one thing I would recommend to everyone.
It’s a doctrine of radical responsibility. But that’s what we want right? We want the power to make our lives exactly what we want them to be.
In all things, that involves paying a price.
You get nothing for nothing in this world. I know that for sure.
JG.