Quest for Satisfaction

It’s the most overlooked fact, the most misused human feeling –

“What’s the missing piece? No matter what I do or where I go, there’s still a bit of me that’s not satisfied.”

There are, it seems to me, two options: easy and difficult.

Have we not exhausted a thousand times, the possibilities of easy? Easy sounds like reality slapping you in the face after hours of mindless netflixing. Like unplugging earbuds and drowning in the noise of long neglected thoughts. Easy looks like a month’s worth of skipped workouts and feels like waking to a morning hangover. Like turning in a paper having only spent a few half-asleep hours working.

Rightly, then, there’s the side we seldom dare to try. Difficult is not always very comfortable. Difficult feels like the stares of classmates after expressing disagreement. Difficult sounds like all the doubt in the world screaming at you. Like running to the sound of pure thought when everyone else seems to be walking to the beat of someone else’s livelihood. Difficult looks like a soldier carrying the body of his fallen comrade and feels like a painful stream of tears and sharp thorns forced in the skull.

Unlike the loneliness of a post Netflix binge, though, overcoming incoming doubt is incredibly empowering, as is arguing for what one believes to be right. Difficult never lasts without some sort of redemption afterwards. Carrying difficulty makes us strong and physical wounds always grow back a skin tougher than before.

The transition from difficulty to strength is so much more rewarding than the transition from lazy to responsibility.

It’s simple to go for the easy. Nearly everyone is doing it. Easy is a very obvious choice.

What’s the missing piece?

There’s an answer. It’s definite. It’s not easy, though. It’s not that obvious. Where you least expect it, that’s where you’ll find it.

And perhaps I could simply tell you the answer that I have in my mind. But that would be a bit too easy, would it not? For now, I’ll share pieces of the puzzle as I find them. You can put the puzzle together yourself. I am confident, though, that the final scene will be the same for you as it is for me. The only differences will lie in the details.

Short-lived comfort and ease? Or redemptive & embraced difficulty and suffering? Lucky for us, we get to choose.