The Path that Greets Resistance

Doing hard things has gotten a bad wrap.

I was recently in conversation with friends who were talking about how great it is when things come together effortlessly. Each valued synchronicity as a sign of universal approval.

I wondered if the same logic applied to the bad relationships they fell into, or the counter offer from an imperfect job that trapped them for another 5 years, or the grab-and-go food that put on covid pounds? Inertia can masquerade as flow and so can addiction.

What does it mean to do hard things, to feel the complexity of struggle, to persevere, to summon grit and courage and sometimes fail? To find flow, according to Steven Kotler, you have to be working just past your edge on high, hard goals. This is not a comfortable place to be. It produces frustration that can be read as negativity, instead of what it really is, which is a bi-product of challenge.

When I look at what I’m trying to do, I see a lot of hard decisions, directed energy and exertion of force against entropy. Synchronicity is our individual will infused sometimes intoxicatingly, sometimes begrudgingly with the energies of the Tao. To create meaning, we must invest ourselves in addition to showing up.

When friends want to talk about ease, I understand. There is a rush that comes from feeling interconnection and a desire to bury, if only for a moment, the herculean efforts, stresses, and failures involved along the way.

My re-write is that each of us are not on the path of least resistance, but on the Path that Greets Resistance. The lessons we learn in moments of friction push us toward higher levels of knowing. If we can accept that resistance is part of our journey, we will understand that there is no flight without drag. They co-exist in the very same way that effort produces ease.

This is why I continue to practice yoga--to keep refining how to relax into challenge.