How I Confused Struggling With Failing

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Heart

“Your turn!” My brother catapulted the bag of beans hitting my face.

I couldn’t blame him though. It was pitch black.

“Nah,” I grunted tossing it back burrowing deeper in my sleeping bag.

“I did it last night bro, your turn,” he insisted pegging me again with the beans.

Fine. It was my turn.

I tightened my wool beanie, got out of my sleeping bag, down the ladder, put on my boots and raced against the moonlight reflecting in the fresh snow.

I slipped in the back patio door of my sister’s farmhouse kitchen and threw the bags in the microwave.

I needed to pee anyway, so better to hit the bathroom now than standing outside the barn in twilight again.

The microwave beeped, I grabbed the warm bean bags and sprinted back through the snow.

I zipped back up and cuddled the warm bag of dried beans. It was our only source of heat. Most nights it helped. But not tonight. I was too cold. And tired.

So tired of sleeping in my sister’s barn, of only putting ten bucks in the gas tank, of the routine of shaking the spiders out of the sleeping bag every night. Tired of smelling those burnt dried bean baggies. Of stacking old sleeping bags as a makeshift mattress.

But mostly I was tired of the struggle.

As I lay awake seeing my breath, I shivered with failure. Then it happened ever so subtly: This sucks swiftly turned to → I suck 😞

I wasn’t 6. I wasn’t a kid. This wasn’t out in the boonies middle of the prairie. It wasn’t a hundred years ago.

It was me. My life. It was an outer block of suburbia of an everyday town. It was me and my brother, grinding at college.

I wasn’t hitting any parties. I was clocking overtime shifts. And I definitely wasn’t inviting any girls back to dazzle them with our bachelor pad. Could you imagine?

Do you remember that bro? I bet he’s reading this today.

I also bet of the 1,000 InspoLetter subscribers, that we’re the only ones that spent our winter semester fighting over whose turn to race through the snow back to the old farmhouse to nuke some dried beans, just to stay warm.

But what I didn’t bet on? Was how much I now love that experience. Even miss it.

I thought the struggle meant I was failing. A failure. I thought hard meant wrong. That confused meant lost.

Friend, are you with me? I didn’t see the Star Behind the Clouds, did I?

You and I, we’ve been talking about trees the last few weeks right?

It’s easy to look at that cottonwood tree, you remember? Bare, bleak, and frosted. It lost its leaves and looks weak.

But is it failing? Or preparing to flourish in spring? It’s Growing Down, Not Up, in the roots where none is looking.

Actually—the cottonwood is having a very successful winter: protecting its survival, riding with the changing weather, being in reality, and finding ways to fill the measure of its creation. Is it possible?

Do you know struggle? What is it?

100? I’m not sure I know.

I thought it was doing something hard; that you don’t like, and then telling yourself, it will be worth it because you’ll grow. Because struggle makes us stronger. Maybe. I’m not so sure now. Just an illusion?

I thought the struggle was living in a barn during college.

But what if The Struggle Is Success. And not after. But during.

Don’t confuse struggle with failing. They are different.

Me zipping up my sleeping bag. Me successfully avoiding debt in the barn. Me bonding with my brother and sister over burnt beans. Me running through the snow. I was already strong. I was doing it. I didn’t need to wait.

Reminds me of JK Rowling, when she wrote Harry Potter she was on welfare, single mom, from a laptop in a coffee shop.

Publishers said no. No no no. Finally she landed one who said okay and paid her a modest $2,000.

Eventually she went on the become the first billionaire author 💰️💰️ 

Yeah yeah, but question, then what did she do?

She went back to the barn. To the sleeping bag mattress. To the struggle.

She published The Cuckoo’s Calling, under her secret pseudonym as Robert Galbraith. Was she truly a skilled writer or just got lucky? You see it right? She wanted the struggle again.

This week's practice at Invisible World is: The Struggle Is The Success. Not after. Not later. Not when your muscles are bigger, it’s happening right now. You don’t have to wait.

I don’t know what’s happening in your world today.

I don’t know where your barn is, how long you’ve been running through the snow, or the moments of doubt where all you have is a worn-out bag of dried beans to keep you warm.

But like the Sun’s core full of conflict and collision, I hope that you are looking up the ceiling right now, tightening your beanie, and saying, More Conflict Please.

Like the fusion burning in the Sun’s core → you burn down at your core, @ 27M°🔥 

Why? Because the world needs who you were meant to be 💯 

Mind 🌞 

🌳 Trees grow more roots in winter than in spring!

Non‑structural carbohydrate (NSC) storage is the process where trees bank sugars and starches in their roots and stems during winter, creating the biochemical reserve that powers next year’s growth.

Soul ⚡️

“We carry within us the wonders we seek without us.”

― Sir Thomas Browne, The Prose of Sir Thomas Browne

🤔 Maybe . . . your wonders are already in your Invisible World?

Thanks for joining us today!

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