The Most Important Lesson I Will Teach My Son

The Most Important Lesson I Will Teach My Son

My beautiful wife is 32 weeks pregnant with our first child. I’m writing a book about all the things I want him to know on the quest to find and stay on his path.

At the top of this list is:

To the degree that you increase voluntary struggle, you will decrease involuntary suffering

What more could a father want for his son than for him to voluntarily engage in difficult things on behalf of the Good?

Struggle vs. Suffering

Struggle is the necessary resistance that we experience in the creation of anything worthwhile. Struggle is the fight against the great undefeated opponent - Entropy. Struggle is the build.

Building your marriage.
Building your health.
Building your business.
Building your skills.
Building a life.

Struggle is the bedfellow of anything worthwhile.

Suffering is different. While Struggle is mandatory, suffering is optional. The Buddha did not say life is suffering. He said life is dissatisfaction.

And on a long enough timeline, there’s nothing more dissatisfying than delaying the difficult.

Struggle is what we voluntarily engage with. The cross we bear that we chose to pick up, and through our volition make lighter. Suffering is involuntary. The things we don’t want that are forced upon us, which by nature, are the heaviest.

The physical pain from a life of inactivity.
The emotional pain of the shot not taken.
The financial pain of a life lived without discipline.
The spiritual pain of missing the mark.

Struggle is a necessary friend on the path. Suffering is what arises when we refuse to walk it.

Difficulty – Now or Later?

“What is deferred is not avoided.”- Thomas More

This price will be paid now or in the future, and like the bank, life will fine late payments.

The 5K we won’t run today becomes a trip to the hospital tomorrow. The difficult conversations we avoid with our spouse become future correspondence with our divorce lawyer. The boring work that we won’t do becomes the future headache we can’t avoid.

We do not get to avoid difficult things. We only choose when we will engage with them. The people we admire choose the present. All our heroes lean into the challenge.

This does not protect us from hardship. This will not shield us from pain. But this will give us the freedom to confront life in the most productive way.

Struggle now or suffer later.

I wish my son (and you) a life of struggle.