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Thread: Do you think it's important to challenge yourself each day?

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    Artenio's Avatar
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    Do you think it's important to challenge yourself each day?

    I certainly do, it's one of the biggest driving factors in my life; I want to be the absolute best I can be and to leave a legacy after I'm gone.

    By "challenge", I mean to push yourself further either physically or mentally beyond your perceived limits. To study longer than you want to, to work out harder even when you're ready to give up; to face adversary and hold your ground.

    Life will always give you challenges, and life isn't always fair - but it's fair enough. Having a strong mental foundation allows you to take what life is going to throw at you and not crumble when times get tough.

    It's okay to have reactions and to feel your emotions, but when you let them throw your life off track, or when you let other people own space in your mind, that's when you get into trouble.

    As a personal example, my father died at a fairly young age just a couple of months ago. It was the most painful thing I've ever experienced, and I've had an unusual amount of friends that have died in my young 28 years of life.

    The night my dad died I was an absolute mess, but I couldn't let it stop me from living my life. So the next day I dusted myself off and decided it was my duty at this point to live my life to the absolute fullest in his honor.

    Before this incident, I already had the mindset of being the best I could be and to challenge myself to be better today than I was yesterday, however, his death cemented in my mind the fact that you don't know when your last day on this earth will be, so you don't have the time to slack off.

    Work hard, rest, recover and get back after it again. Don't let anyone keep you from being yourself, and never let anyone tell you what you can't do!

    "Stay hard!" - David Goggins

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    Ambient's Avatar
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    YES! To feel purpose and growth I need a challenge. I need to overcome something. (But there is totally that reminder, that some days, its okay to do absolutely nothing at all. To sit on a couch with no obligations, responsibilities or worries.) I have this thing where I always have to be learning about something. I cannot go a day without learning something new, I have to. No matter what kind of day it is, I want to grab a new piece of knowledge somewhere. So I'm always doing something.

    But there are times where I am a beast when it comes to working out and other times where I already know on Tuesday that I'm just going to tell myself to start over again the next Monday. There are times where that drive is there, and its intense and there are others where I lose it entirely. But I do always find it again!

    I'm so sorry about your dad. It often takes losing something to really drive home the importance of what we do in life, and I'm really happy to see you took this severe loss, and channeled it into being even better for yourself!

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    Artenio (10-24-2021)

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    Artenio's Avatar
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    Well said, Ambient! I'm a firm believer in "if you're not growing, you're dying," either mentally, physically, or spiritually. Which reminds me, I really need to up my meditation game. I've been lacking in that department lately.

    I appreciate your condolences and recognition. Keep up the great work you're doing over there, and keep being you! 💪

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    Well, obviously moving out from your comfort zone is important in order to develop

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    not every day - i think there's alot of social pressure etc to be hustling every day or whatever, striving for constant self improvement, and while i think it's important i think it's also important to consider what the end goal is - is it self improvement for intrinsic reward, or is it for superficial reasons like Instagram likes on a gym selfie or something like that - we're constantly getting shown a false image of what a human being should look and act like, in a tv ad for coke where everyones super attractive, ads for luxery items that convey the idea that you need to acquire certain items to be cool, and highly curated social media profiles of people we know that show only the good stuff - graduation pics, vacations, everything edited to make it seem like that person is really killing it. not to make a generalization of course as there's alotta exemptions.

    i think amidst all the noise of the current day people aren't often being told they can just chill out and bum around, life should be played on creative mode, not for high scores
    im someone who tends to go too hard too fast on things for awhile, everything becomes a videogame and i end up working too hard and burning out, or exercising too much and getting injured
    i've been into taoism for the past few years, it has a general philosophy of "non-action" which doesn't necessarily mean doing not doing anything, but rather going with the flow per se
    there's also a zen buddishm koan that kind of intersects with Taoist beliefs

    "A monk asked Zhaozhou to teach him.
    Zhaozhou asked, "Have you eaten your meal?”
    The monk replied, "Yes, I have."
    "Then go wash your bowl", said Zhaozhou.
    At that moment, the monk was enlightened."

    to me it's about staying in the present moment, and doing only what naturally comes next - not straining to reach constant goals but rather floating downstream towards them

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