The Truth of Trying
Last night at 2 a.m. I sat idle in my home office having just submitted my first essay to a national publication. Nobody saw it happen. Nobody was awake to celebrate it. I shut down my computer and went to sleep wondering if it was good enough. I'm 25 years old stumbling and recognize a need to get ahead. Not just ahead of those around me, but rather ahead of looming technological advancement. That realization thrust me back into the work and this is what fighting feels like: not the highlight reel, but the quiet send button in the dead of night after countless hours of refinement. The “pursuit of greatness” is far from glorious, but is that the full truth of trying?
Spending countless hours trying to get an edge, to a point of fearing sleep as though it may be a waste of time. The very act of trying means allowing your operating system to be hijacked by obsessive hope. Chasing your dreams comes with a hidden set of terms and conditions – the kind only noticed after you’ve signed. A disconnect that alienates you from those you want to be around. A separation from strategic thought about the future you’re really after.
The rolodex of internal thoughts can be quite lonely and confusing. Friends, lovers, family may genuinely be off-put by this change in pace – a break in “normalcy” and as a result you’ll likely suffer. Texts you forgot to answer. Dates canceled because you’re “investing in your future.” Attempting to explain the vision behind this all typically ends with "okay, yeah I gotcha," but I can feel the unsuccessful saturation of information.
This phenomenon is hardly malicious, but rather borne in unfamiliarity and the statistical reality of failure. It’s the quiet understanding that most of this doesn’t work out, and everyone in the room knows it. The truth is while we chase a life without regret, we're opening ourselves up to a different form of it – one that may be more damaging. The steady starvation of connection, from love, from our youth.
The very act of trying means allowing your operating system to be hijacked by obsessive hope.
As we chase our dreams the world around us continues to flow. We miss out on the now and delusionally invest in the future. While we remain hopeful there is a quiet pain in the persistent ghost of the unlived life. We may try and grasp on to moments, to lovers, to now, but we're only half there. Tryers give all they can without realizing most of their energy is spent thinking of the future.
I felt this most clearly somewhat recently. A bit of calm in the storm and I was back opening myself and my mind up for a slice of the "lost art" of love. A lost art that requires attention as if the other person is the only one in the room. For me it’s sitting across from someone and something you want with a half-absent mind. You convince yourself you’re protecting the future, while quietly ruining your chances in the present. An unwanted paradox that only becomes clear once the moment is gone. It requires all of you and may not desire the extra baggage that comes along. Eventually the storm hit, thinking it would feel like any other failure. This form of failure is vastly different; it's not tied to a project or another entity but connected with the mind you plug along trying with.
Even a mind accustomed to rejection or exits underestimates its ability to cope with what is real and what truly matters, love and connection. It stung, and to be candid – it still stings. But instead every loss hides a message. A realization. A question. When you care about something or someone it tends to be one worth sitting with. You may find yourself navigating a corridor you’ve been hiding from that feels necessary to confront.
You may find yourself navigating a corridor you've been hiding from that feels necessary to confront.
For me, why am I trying? It's not to get rich, or to gain unnecessary power. My truth of trying is the vision of a better world. A world I want to build for the betterment of my future family. As I spend countless hours in pursuit, I relinquish my youth for two uncertainties in direct conflict. Giving my time away for a chance at being able to sustain love, while arguably forgoing the best time of my life to find it. As someone who has been on "the hunt” I can tell you firsthand – it eats away at who you really are and who you want to be. The loneliness and silence that was once required becomes haunting. The longing for connection and memories breaks though leaving you in a place where the foundation is articulately constructed without anyone to inhabit it with. A heart that feels ready with a mind that says: "not just yet.”
A problem that feels unique to my life may really be an underlying condition of modern interconnectedness. We all feel like we have to do something different, anything to get out of the 9-5 and into real security. The kind of security that lets the scattered thoughts subside – financial stability and the lives we really want. As I get older, honest reckoning takes place and I begin to ask myself: at what point does the trying become the obstacle to the very thing you're trying for, and what will you regret the most if it all fails?
What will you regret the most if it all fails?
Joshua K. Burke — The Truth of Trying
