All Things Work Together
As someone living in both the 21st century and a 1st world country with resources such as the internet, fast food or even speedy deliveries it’s easy for someone like ourselves to expect almost everything right now. There’s almost this addictive feeling that comes with gaining the heart's desires quickly, or having our way through our manipulation of the outcome. However, that does not stop life from “life-ing” and when this happens it seems for even the smallest inconveniences to appear as huge obstacles. Let’s talk about why it seems that way and how we can teach ourselves to appreciate every aspect of the journey.
I’m no professional in baby services or pediatrics but a rule of thumb that I’ve come to know about babies is to feed them vegetable baby food BEFORE feeding them fruit baby food. This is because babies (shoot even myself) would often prefer the sweeter, more tasty fruit food rather than the less tasty or flavorful vegetable baby food. Feeding them fruits first makes them MUCH less likely to appreciate or desire the vegetables. Or in my case from what I’ve seen, they’ll spit it out or cry! My point? My point is that when we grow accustomed to receiving the things that we want quickly, even at lesser quality, it makes us reluctant to the things that take more time or life’s inconveniences that may come with it.
Transparently speaking, this past month I discovered the downside of gym supplements. As many know, I absolutely love to workout, specifically running/sprinting. In high school my father and I would workout every day before school at 4:30 AM and to help supplement our energy and workout quality we would take Pre-Workout. Pre-Workout is basically a gym supplement to assist your lungs in getting oxygen to your blood cells quicker. In my case that meant I could run longer with less tiredness. After years of regularly taking this supplement, I’ve grown tolerances and increased my intake. Well, up until this past month, I discovered the downside of this. I CAN”T SLEEP! Haha, yes it’s true. I had grown so used to this powder that I found nights where I couldn’t get a wink of sleep. By halting this supplement completely, I found myself (to be expected) tired earlier within my workouts which disappointed me until I began to realize that instant results in the gym was not my goal, my goal was to get just a little better than I did yesterday.
The pre-workouts or sweet baby foods might look different in everyone’s life but when we have the option to have something that seems desirable in a quicker timeframe than something desirable that takes time, we become victims to our own expectations at the mercy of life’s ups and downs. My late grandfather used to garden fruits and vegetables in his backyard and I remember his food always being my favorite above any processed/store bought food. In reflection of those times, it took a long time and many failures to bring about those outcomes of the good harvests of his fruits and vegetables.
In life, it’s important that we recognize these things as well. It might sound cliche but “good things take time.” Applying principles such as these into the daily parts of our lives teaches us how to become more flexible and more appreciative of the bigger picture along our own journeys. The good moments and the bad moments are all “moments” at the end of the day and never last forever but if we could teach ourselves to love the two equally we will live better lives of gratitude.
I charge you this month of July to document/journal the things that you’re grateful for every day. Highlighting the things of which you’re grateful for helps bring back to our memory the great moments we realized on our journeys or even the great victories from tough times that we’ve also realized on our journey. In all, I encourage everyone to step out of the driver's seat, allow God to lead, and to ultimately appreciate the journey.
Scripture of the Month:
“And we know that all things work together for the good to those who love God, to those called according to His purpose.”
Romans 8:28 NKJV
