Jaye Trade Blogs

The Truth Behind Struggle.

Struggle is part of everyday life. People can struggle with relationships, their work, their own feelings, even the simple mundane things like getting out of bed in the morning. When I struggle in my work, I’m forced to face myself, and attempt to identify and fix the issue I’m facing. This is the constant battle to overcome, as without overcoming adversity, you’ll only be met with further problems.

The practice of self reflection and evaluation doesn’t come without a cost. Taking a step back, and attempting to view yourself in an objective manner tends to offer new perspective. In my case, the struggle I’m forced to overcome when practicing reflection is attempting to do so in a positive manner, with the intention of producing positive outcomes, as opposed to only shooting myself down. There is no progress in self depreciation, only in constructive criticism, but a problem I face often is attempting to not think any less of myself over my mistakes. I’m only human, and without mistakes to make, I wouldn’t be needing to improve, so of course I’m going to be facing new, and potentially old problems any day they show up. Doing so while acknowledging my self value isn’t any less is a dire viewpoint I must come to understand.

Discipline in Negativity.

Talking down to myself yields no true purpose. Some would say that in today’s world, everyone’s too sensitive and we need to be tougher on ourselves, and those around us if we wish to meet progress personally, and even as a society, but I don’t entirely agree. I believe this perspective comes from the point of confusing failure with acceptance, and while true some people tend to be okay with failure, treating it as such, there’s many who wish to surpass their limitations, without the need for constant judgement, from themselves or those around them.

Acknowledging my mistakes, and overcoming the challenges I face requires scrutiny, but providing the effort necessary leaves little room for the impact negative thoughts and emotions provide. At best, they may apply some form of thinking that will lead to a hopefully positive outcome, but if its at the cost of my self respect, then in turn I’ll think myself less capable on a deeper level, and potentially come to new problems that forked from the original one. There’s a very fine line with negative outlooks and positive results. Logic determines that for something to require fixing or change, there must be a problem at hand. This logic leads to a positive end, because the issue was acknowledged, which lead to a solution. Once that fine line is crossed however, you enter new territory where you’re faced with more negativity than necessary. An example – I must fix my roof so that water doesn’t get in. The solution is to take the necessary steps toward fixing the roof. No fine line crossed, I can focus on doing what’s necessary. Now lets cross that line – If I don’t fix this roof, there’s going to be water damage. I need to fix this roof and fast, it could rain any day now. What if it rains tonight? Adding this context, while maybe true, doesn’t provide any sort of solution to the problem at hand. Some people would argue that thinking this would lead to a faster outcome. To that I propose, if you were more disciplined in your thoughts, your actions, and overall self, then the speed at which you provided a solution would’ve stayed the same, because you would’ve been able to acknowledge the severity of the problem at hand, and work toward the solution at the rate necessary, without the hindrance of the added negativity. In fact, you can make an argument that with the added negativity, you might end up haphazardly fixing the roof in a rush, maybe skip a step here, do it faster there, whatever the case, and end up with a lesser quality result than if you just maintained the disciplined attitude to fix the problem, and let that be your driving focus.

Conclusion

All this to say, its okay to treat yourself with respect. You deserve it more than you might think, and acquiring the discipline to think of yourself in that light requires it’s own work and journey, but it’s one that’s worth the effort necessary. It isn’t always easy, and its definitely something I struggle with every day, but I try to look at the progress in process, and trust that one day this discipline will hold fully true for me, as it hopefully may already for some of you.

With love and respect. – JayesusR