The Desire for Things to be Easier
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A Principle for Growth in All Areas
“If your workouts are getting easier, you’re doing something wrong.”
I read that on Twitter this week, written by a typically Alpha male personal trainer who I follow. What he means by it is that, if you are looking to get fitter or to grow in strength then you have to apply the principle of increased resistance.
Increased resistance means that, as you master the ability to do one thing - say run a certain distance in a certain amount of time or lift a certain weight a certain number of times - then you set a goal for yourself to improve. You look to run a certain distance faster or you look to lift a heavier weight or the same weight more times. It is only by applying the principle of increased resistance that we grow.
Hence, if you are doing the same workout over and over again, it will get easier. But you won’t be growing very much, and, eventually, not at all.
This principle applies in other areas also, such as music. When learning an instrument, the only way to progress in skill and knowledge is to set yourself greater and greater challenges which lead to an increased ability to play your instrument. Then easier pieces become possible, but only pieces that are easier than the most difficulty piece you can play. I remember the thrill of learning Rachmaninov’s Prelude in C# Minor when I was about seventeen or so. It was by far the most technically complex piece I’d ever learnt and gave me a challenge that increased the dexterity of my fingers more than ever. (I never really learned to play this piece very well, by the way, and it was around that time that I decided that I didn’t really have the natural grace to make a great pianist.) And this sort of thing also applies to other areas such as the learning of grammatical and syntactical forms in language and countless other academic and artistic arenas.
What Is the Desire for Things to be Easier?
Does it apply also to the human soul and its capacity for greatness? That’s a question that has been on my mind recently. When one has very small children as I do, one often thinks about the time when they will be slightly older and when, perhaps, things might be - at least in some ways - easier. But what is this desire for things to be easier? It is, on the one level, a desire to enjoy life more, to not always feel that one is emptying oneself out until one can bear it no more, to enjoy one’s relationship with one’s children on a more equal level, to have them understand you more and be capable of conversing on a higher domain that will give more pleasure to all parties.
But there is also a sense in which this desire is the desire to stop growing spiritually. And the reason for this is that it is only really through struggle and challenge that we grow. So to wish for an end to struggle and challenge is really to wish for an end to spiritual growth.
I believe these things to be true. But it often feels like they are not true. I try to help with our young kids as much as I possibly can. Sometimes I find myself looking after them in the afternoon whilst Lorna has a well-deserved rest. And sometimes I really don’t know what to do with myself or with them. Sometimes it all just seems so pointless, as I maybe try to tidy up or get something done and they have, for some reason, lost the ability to entertain themselves, just hanging around, causing destruction and chaos.
A question that has occurred to me to ask myself: How can I grow in this moment? Sometimes it is not at all clear to me. But I know that I can at the very least try and remain calm and be patient.
As the difficulty level increases, so does our capacity to deal with the difficulty. Every time I choose to be patient and gentle is perhaps a moment when my capacity expands ever so slightly. And as this happens, then I can meet the next challenge that comes better. But, in order for that challenge to be really meaningful, I must be prepared for it to feel just as hard as the previous one. That’s the way that growth works.
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