The Only True Hell: Not Giving Up, Yet Not Putting in the Work

Both ends of the road offer a way to find peace. One path is to lower your desires to the floor and live an easy life. The other is to shoulder the equipment necessary to match those desires and move to the side of those who create. Neither path is blameworthy. The only time it becomes painful is when you stand in the middle, belonging to neither.

Only those in the middle are punished. It is keeping your desires on the side of “wanting change” while your body remains in days where nothing is accumulated. Waiting for the promise of a ladder. Buying lottery tickets. Saying “someday.” The only difference between prayer and design is whether or not you are moving the variables that your own hands can control.

The pain doesn’t come from quitting or settling; it comes solely from spending the same day over and over while thinking, “I hate it like this.” The cost of remaining miserable is a monthly subscription; the cost of deciding is a one-time payment. The true identity of that suffering isn’t your job—it’s the state of having not decided.

If you feel that you are working hard but aren’t being rewarded, before you increase the volume, first look at whether that effort is flowing toward what you actually want. Effort directed at the wrong destination will never reach your goal, no matter how much you pile up.

You don’t have to decide today. Just by admitting that you “haven’t decided yet,” you will see what you need to research next. Every choice is permitted. The only things that are punished are not choosing, and remaining in a state of indecision.