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Don’t Escape, Endure
March 2nd, 2023
Escape: “To succeed in avoiding or eluding something dangerous, unpleasant, or undesirable.”
Before anything else is said, reread and focus on the bolded words.
Endure: “To suffer patiently; to remain in existence, to last.”
Again reread and notice the bolded words. What do you notice?
Yesterday’s topic discussed “Looking in a mirror” to understand our true selves but mentioned the idea that many people choose to escape from who they are. Escapism should not be the goal of life and leads to feelings of emptiness. We must instead opt to endure because there is light at the end of the tunnel when we last.
In first qualifying this statement, there are absolutely cases where escaping is necessary. Life and death situations come to mind along with abusive relationships. Those are not the scenarios for today’s discussion. The topics in question today are more minute bouts of being uncomfortable people choose to quit and escape from.
Have a stressful day at work? Go home and crack open that bottle.
Have an argument with your spouse? Go drive around for 2 hours.
Have bills piling up? Go buy lottery tickets.
Have a really hard workout? Quit early, no one will know.
These scenarios are obviously more complex than made out to be, but these “solutions” are merely acts of escape from addressing any sense of an answer. We must not escape, we must endure. We must look to solve problems head-on instead of running from them. Have that difficult conversation. Cut back on spending. Do more in that workout. Temporary changes can lead to lifetimes of differences. The changes start from enduring the situations and not escaping.
Escaping in these sorts of contexts only merges us onto the highway for continued unhappiness and failure. By avoiding problems in our lives, they continue to grow and fester until they are multiples worse. That drink we cracked open after work became an alcoholic habit 2 years later. That argument we didn’t finish with our spouse led to more arguments and divorce. Spending money on lottery tickets made our children go hungry. Quitting early in that workout made us fail to make the team. Again, these are just examples but they show the effect of what can happen if we choose to run. Choosing to run becomes a habit we turn to. By standing up to the battles life throws at us, we are more capable of competing, finding answers, and being the authors of our own happiness. When we endure, nothing can break us.
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