Part of me wishes the work was more pleasant at times. Though I enjoy high standards, hard work, and stepping up to those challenges, the high cost of excellence is still painful, especially in relationships.
If you have anything meaningful in your heart to accomplish or become, you have to do what you have to do.
Some people are never going to understand that about you. They can only see you through their filtered eyes. In your intense effort, they sense their missed opportunities, unfulfilled dreams, unconquered fears, or unlived lives. It can appear in them as envy, rejection, judgment, authority, or any other emotionally charged reaction.
Understand this: it is their discomfort they're attempting to resolve and their priorities they're trying to serve. People have always struggled to separate their own internal desires from another person's autonomy and best interest. It’s one of the oldest stories in history.
These muddy and debris-filled waters are not easy to swim through successfully. It's as hard to experience someone making this change as it is to be the one who makes the change.
The unpleasant and unfortunate cost of doing what you have to do to chase a dream is that it changes your relationships, sometimes forever.
Some people don't want to understand you. Their opinions are embedded too deeply. Some people can't understand you. Their life patterns are too established. Some people don't understand you yet. They need time and patience to grow comfortable.
You're the only one who knows what's inside you. You can't afford to doubt that. To become your true and best self, you must learn to trust that within yourself.
Though others will doubt, criticize, and judge you from the outside, you have to do what you have to do.
You can build the best version of yourself or attempt to please other people, but you can't do both. I believe the best version of you pleases the right, and the most, people.
Do not carry the doubt, criticism, and judgment of others for them, even for friends and family. It's not yours to hold. If someone must carry that burden, it must be them. You have too much important work and too many things to accomplish.
Now go. Do what you have to do.
Answer the call. Do the work.
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