You Have No Choice
There was a time in my life when I was into rock climbing. For those that know me, I’m guessing there is a mild level of surprise. First, I am not exactly built for it. Secondly, I am deathly afraid of heights. I get a little skittish when climbing a ladder to change a lightbulb. But my wife and I love the outdoors. And rock climbing gave us a new challenge and an excuse to be outside.
At the peak of our new hobby, my wife and I decided to go for a weekend climbing excursion with some friends. They were more experienced than us so we figured they could help us take our skills to the next level. Mainly, we just wanted to get outside and have some fun. As someone that is afraid of heights, I use the word fun loosely.
Our first climb was a “warm-up”. The route was riddled with places to grip your hands and place your feet. Hard or not, it is impossible to avoid heights when climbing. The finish point for this climb was 100 feet up. Our friend went first. He scampered up the cliff with ease—placing the rope along the route. This allowed my wife and I—the newbies—to do a much easier version of climbing, called belay climbing.
With the rope attached to my wife like a human lever, I began to climb. Going up was easy. I just focused on one move at a time—staring at the wall directly in front of me. I tried not to think about the rope snapping and me plummeting to my death.
Place your foot. Then reach with your hand. Other foot. Another hand. Keep moving.
By focusing on the climb, my fear actually floated away for a few minutes. And then I reached the top. There was a ledge that allowed me to come off the wall and stand up.
At that point, most people would probably be in awe of the view. At the very least, you’d think that a sense of accomplishment would trickle in. Not for me. All I felt was that rush of fear that comes on quickly and then settles in the middle of your gut. My heart was scrambling up my throat.
I looked down at my wife and our friends 100 feet below. I was envious of their feet firmly on the ground. Safe. The butterflies were fluttering. The sweat beads were multiplying like bunnies on my forehead. I thought to myself, what do I do now? My friend—reading my mind—shouted up at me, “now you come down”. He instructed me to turn around and lean back.
Lean back?!? Is he insane!? Nah, I’m good.
I started thinking about alternative methods for getting down.
How long would it take for a fire truck to come with one of those big ladders?
My friend—sensing the hesitation—called out, “At this point, you don’t have a choice”.
Damn it.
He was right. I was going to have to lean into my fear to get what I wanted—to be back on the ground. I had no choice.
The pain of doing nothing eventually becomes worse than the pain of doing something
James Clear once wrote:
“Many people delay taking action because they hope to avoid suffering. They keep searching for a path that won’t involve tradeoffs.
But some form of suffering is always inevitable. The process of taking action is the process of choosing your pain.”
Sitting on the couch is easier than going to the gym. But make that choice too often and the suffering that comes is far worse than the temporary pain of a workout.
Avoiding a hard conversation with a friend, child, or spouse is easy. Hard conversations are scary. Why bother? But the relationship will just get worse and worse bringing more suffering along the way.
Increasing your knowledge or adding a new skill to help you in your career is difficult. It takes consistent effort and patience. Put another way, growth is painful. But being stuck in a dead-end job is far worse.
Spending all your money as it comes in feels far less painful than putting a portion away for your future self. You don’t know that person. All you know is that you want those dang shoes or that new car. The hell with future you. Present you feels the suffering of desire.
But your future becomes your present. And the quality of your present life depends on the tradeoffs you made in your past.
You can avoid the fear of investing by stashing all your money in cash. It’ll feel like the safer route for a while. That is until you realize that inflation has been slowly eating the value of your money. You can’t save your way to financial freedom—you have to build assets and invest. That requires withstanding the stressful ups and downs along the way.
Every time you take the easy road you greatly diminish the tools you have to solve problems in the future.
I could’ve stayed on that wall. I didn’t have to come down. I could’ve let the fear of leaning back keep me up there. But then what? I guess let hunger and thirst slowly take me. No. I had to face my fear, choose my pain, and come down.
So next time you think you can avoid pain and suffering, remember, you have no choice. It comes for us all. It’s better to start choosing your pain rather than letting life choose it for you.
Here’s to making money matter!