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Cardboard
Did you know that one of the highest points in Florida is a trash dump? It’s called Mount Trashmore and it piles a whopping 225 feet above the ground. Now another question: what do my apartment and Florida have in common? That’s right, this past week one of the highest points in my apartment was a pile of trash… let me explain. A few weeks ago I wrote about ordering bedroom furniture, and this week that furniture arrived. I am super excited to now have a bed frame to put my mattress on, but after seeing the mess that the boxes created, I almost wish I just put my mattress on the box. I think the box would probably do just as good a job holding me up as the bed frame inside it - and way less mess. But anyways, what’s my point? My point is that almost everything good has some sort of price.
I get it, my 10 foot by 10 foot by 5 foot tall pile of boxes and styrofoam to clean up is a very small, and also very expected, price to pay for new bedroom furniture. But I think this small anecdote can apply to much larger situations. Let’s look at an Olympic athlete. It has been said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master something (Olympic athletes have probably spent way more than this but we’ll be conservative). Also, most Olympic athletes are in their twenties, or possibly younger. So amassing 10,000+ hours of practice in their young lives probably came at quite the price. Tons of birthday parties missed, family vacations missed, events and time with friends also missed so they could pursue their craft and dream of making it to the Olympics. I’m sure that missing all these things was hard in the moment, but the second they step foot into the arena during those opening ceremonies, everything is worth it - all those hardships were just a pile of boxes.
I think a lot of people are afraid to follow their dreams because the price of following their dreams seems too high. I am definitely one of these people - always scared about the consequences of my choices, even if I’m choosing to follow my dreams. As I said earlier, even good things, like following your dreams, have some sort of price attached. Everything has a different price, but as a wiser man than me once said, “nothing worth doing is easy.” But the question I think we need to ask ourselves during these decisions is this: is the price really that steep...or is it just a pile of boxes? Don’t get me wrong those boxes were a pain to get from my apartment to the dumpster, in fact they didn’t even fit in the dumpster, but at the end of the day a few trips and a vacuum was all I needed.
So that is my challenge to you this week: think about what’s holding you back from something you want, and if the price is actually high...or just a pile of boxes. Humans are really good at making things seem way worse in our heads than they actually are. But if we can get out of our heads for just a moment, we realize that sometimes the brick wall we have been staring at for so long is actually made out of cardboard.
Stay Motivated,
-Dan
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