We All Have Hard

Two years ago I wrote a blog on The Hard. It was a concept based on the diaologue of one of my favorite movies, A League of Their Own. Here is the dialogue:

Jimmy Dugan: Taking a little day trip?
Dottie Hinson: No, Bob and I are driving home. To Oregon.
Jimmy Dugan: [long pause] You know, I really thought you were a ballplayer.
Dottie Hinson: Well, you were wrong.
Jimmy Dugan: Was I?
Dottie Hinson: Yeah. It is only a game, Jimmy. It's only a game, and, and, I don't need this. I have Bob; I don't need this. At all.
Jimmy Dugan: I, I gave away five years at the end my career to drink. Five years. And now there isn't anything I wouldn't give to get back any one day of it.
Dottie Hinson: Well, we're different.
Jimmy Dugan: Shit, Dottie, if you want to go back to Oregon and make a hundred babies, great, I'm in no position to tell anyone how to live. But sneaking out like this, quitting, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. Baseball is what gets inside you. It's what lights you up, you can't deny that.
Dottie Hinson: It just got too hard.
Jimmy Dugan : It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great. 

I know in this movie Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan is discussing baseball. But in my previous blog from two years ago, I discussed how the concept of "the hard" is in all aspects of life. Too many people in life face "hard" and run from it. Some will attempt to go through whatever hard is, but then say they "can't take it anymore" and end up running away in the end. 

The greatest people and pioneers of our history, from our culture were people who endured "the hard" no matter what. Many were bruised, scarred, battered, and suffered. But as long as they committed to going through the hard, they succeeded and only the greatest possibilities came through. As a Black Belt, I never give up. Persistence is one of the many overly used qualities I have, which can sometimes be a great fault, but I refuse to see it that way. 

I never give up on possibilities. I want to many times, but I don't. I never give up on people. I want to many times, and probably should. But I don't. Maybe I am naive. Maybe I'm a hopeless romantic. But who is to say my faith in people, my faith in the unseen, my faith in God, my faith in possibility, my faith in myself, although it has dwindled much, is invaluable. Yes it is HARD. But it is the HARD that makes it great. 

LIFE is hard. But Life is also great. Allow yourself to endure the hard, and great things come about. Give up and run away, you miss out on a tremendous amount of greatness. This is why people never truly feel fulfilled. I don't want to be like that anymore. I want to be fulfilled. I have a lot of hard to get through. We all do.

Who is to say that my hard is harder than your hard? Here's the thing, hard is not relative, hard is hard! PERIOD. Everyone wants to compare. There is no harder, there is just hard. We need to stop ranking our hard against everyone else's hard, to make us feel better or worse and just sympathize the fact we all have hard. 

I have written blogs about how people end up wearing masks and avoiding the hard as ways of comfort, to stay away from their false securities and never face their "hard". Little did I know how much I was doing that in certain aspects of my life. I knew the lesson, and applied it to many areas of life. But there were some other areas that completely blinded me. When you don't deal with your "hard", stress builds up. That stress ends up mass producing cortisol and adrenaline that heightens your senses, heart rate quickens, and blood flow to muscles increase, beginning the fight or flight process. A very normal thing.

Stress due to chronic mass production of cortisol and adrenaline leads to depression, anxiety, heart disease, cancer, just to name a few. It is like holding a ticking time bomb inside of you. And you begin to implode from the inside out. That is what happens when you don't deal with your "hard". I experienced this, as all my blogs are leading up a a bigger blog in the future, these lessons are from experience and observation; from successes and failures. 

I get angry when people say "it just got too hard" like Genna Davis did in A League of Their Own and then they give up and run away. But it's normal. I have to learn that it IS an option people take. But knowing as a martial artist that sometimes facing the FEAR of hard means Face Everything And Recover, it does get me angry for anyone to give up. There is nothing TOO hard, there is just HARD. We all have it. And we have to face it. Otherwise, you live with the time bomb inside you. And it pains others to see it happen when they notice. 

Never give up just because life is too hard. People are too hard. Circumstances are too hard. Tasks are too hard. Jobs are too hard. It's the HARD that makes it all great in the end. Don't miss out on the wonderful things that can be. You will never live to fulfillment and limit the great possibilities you deserve. 

Don't run away and give up. Don't think you can never make a difference. Hope means Hold On Possibilities Exist. Faith is Feeling As If There's Hope. Give lots of HUGS, Helping Us Grow Spiritually. That is where we must unite together to help one another. Five fingers separated are not as strong as one single fist once the fingers come together. We are as weak divided as we are strong united. You're not alone when facing "the hard". (BOWS)

Yours in service,
MASTER A TRENTO