No Point in Even Trying

Sad but true?

Maybe the Onion was correct in their recent spoof news article. Losing weight, writing a book, breaking up with someone, learning another language, changing careers--all these choices are made more difficult by the inertia of life. Change is hard, intentionally changing yourself is impossible.

Bullshit.

We all start out life at the same place as naked, helpless, poor, dumb babies. We immediately start to accumulate experiences, knowledge, & stuff.  We also start developing habits--both good and bad.  Learning to speak and understand our first language seems like a natural process from a position of being an adult who is already fluent but think about how frustrated kids are by their inability to understand or to be understood.  No wonder kids pitch fits all the time; they want something specific but are incapable of getting it! There's nothing easy about developing language skills, but children have no other choice than to struggle through picking up words and phrases little-by-little everyday. They develop the good habit of studying their first language until they can be understood as they would like to be.

He'll be speaking Swahili in no time

Necessity drives kids to try new things. As adults we benefit from the ability to reason and forecast with rational thought.  We can look at our struggles to become fitter and healthier through the lens of a child struggling everyday and see that immediate results are not possible. We can see the reward in the effort itself.  We know that diligent effort over time pays off in the end. We know that babies learn to speak eventually because they work at it everyday and don't let minor setbacks derail their progress.

Changing your life isn't impossible. You have so much more going for you than any helpless, ignorant baby, and they change their lives all the time. Find your internal driving need as babies do. You have to want to do something the way that a baby wants to talk or walk. Commit to a healthy lifestyle and little-by-little you'll get the results you want.

If a helpless, dumb baby can do it so can you.