{"database": "pelican", "table": "content", "rows": [["ryan", "musings", "On Sundays mornings I wake up pretty early, make myself some coffee and read\nthrough all of the interesting articles I came across during the week (usually\nfrom [Twitter](https://www.twitter.com)).\n\nLast weekend I came across an article, [You probably know to ask yourself,\n\u201cWhat do I want?\u201d Here\u2019s a way better\nquestion](https://getpocket.com/explore/item/you-probably-know-to-ask-\nyourself-what-do-i-want-here-s-a-way-better-question-1149529539)\n\nI was struck by several passages in the article:\n\n> > If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year,\n> yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you\n> actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image and a false promise.\n> Maybe what you want isn\u2019t what you want, you just enjoy wanting. Maybe you\n> don\u2019t actually want it at all.\n>>\n\n>> I wanted the reward and not the struggle. I wanted the result and not the\nprocess. I was in love not with the fight but only the victory. And life\ndoesn\u2019t work that way.\n\n>>\n\n>> This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles\ndetermine our successes. So choose your struggles wisely, my friend.\n\nWhen I was younger I wanted to be many things, a Physicist, an Architect, an\nEngineer, a Professor ... but none of those things ever got any closer. I'd be\nreally engaged in the ideas of one of these for weeks or months at a time.\n\nI remember being so enamoured with the idea of Civil Engineering I convinced\nmy parents to get me a drafting board that I had in my room and I used to\n'design' a prototype of a Martian Habitat.\n\nBut, as soon as I got bored I would move onto something else. From Physics to\nArchitecture to Engineering and back to Physics. I would always stop when it\neither got too hard **OR** something else looked more interesting.\n\nI was always awed by my peers that could stay laser focused on a single hobby\nor dream job and was amazed at the amount of sacrifice they would be willing\nto make in order to achieve their goals.\n\nIt wasn't until I got to college when I started to see what I needed to\nsacrifice in order to get ahead.\n\nParties on the weekend. Not for me ... I had a full time job and was a full\ntime student. I would hang with friends when I could, but I was mostly at the\nlibrary studying, or at work studying or maybe getting a little bit of sleep.\n\nI suddenly became laser focused like the people I knew in high school. I had a\nsingle goal and that was to graduate and go onto graduate school so I could\nget a PhD in economics.\n\nThe PhD didn't happen, and in the following years I felt like I did in high\nschool ... becoming very interested in a 'thing' and then moving on from it\nbecause I'd get bored.\n\nThen I stumbled into the Healthcare Industry and it all came back. An ability\nto be laser focused on new and interesting things. Wanting (maybe needing) to\nlearn everything I could about Healthcare.\n\nIt's been more than 8 years since I started on my journey, and I've struggled\nevery time I've started to learn a new aspect of the industry, or just an\naspect of a new job that I had started.\n\nAnd that's when the final passage in the article really hit me like a ton of\nbricks:\n\n> > This is the most simple and basic component of life: our struggles\n> determine our successes. So choose your struggles wisely, my friend.\n\nIt truly is the struggle that determines the success. I've struggled mightily\nwhile working in healthcare, but those struggles have lead to the most\nfulfilling and successful career I could have hoped for.\n\n", "2017-01-27", "struggle-determines-success", "On Sundays mornings I wake up pretty early, make myself some coffee and read\nthrough all of the interesting articles I came across during the week (usually\nfrom [Twitter](https://www.twitter.com)).\n\nLast weekend I came across an article, [You probably know to ask yourself,\n\u201cWhat do I want?\u201d Here\u2019s a way \u2026](https://getpocket.com/explore/item/you-\nprobably-know-to-ask-yourself-what-do-i-want-here-s-a-way-better-\nquestion-1149529539)\n\n", "Struggle determines success", "https://www.ryancheley.com/2017/01/27/struggle-determines-success/"]], "columns": ["author", "category", "content", "published_date", "slug", "summary", "title", "url"], "primary_keys": ["slug"], "primary_key_values": ["struggle-determines-success"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.5598012357950211}