Don’t Escape, Endure

Escape: “To succeed in avoiding or eluding something dangerous, unpleasant, or undesirable.”

Endure: “To suffer patiently; to remain in existence, to last.”

Reread the above definitions. What do you notice?

Don’t avoid the unpleasant. Suffer patiently to last. Endure, don’t escape.

Escapism should not be the goal of life and leads to feelings of emptiness. You must instead opt to endure because there is light at the end of the tunnel when you last.

People suffer from minute bouts of discomfort constantly that they choose to quit and escape from.

Have a stressful day at work? Go home and crack open that bottle.

Have an argument with your spouse? Go drive around for 2 hours.

Have bills piling up? Go buy lottery tickets.

Have a really hard workout? Quit early, no one will know.

These “solutions” are merely acts of escape from addressing any sense of an answer. You must not escape, You must endure. You must look to solve problems head-on instead of running from them.

Have that difficult conversation.

Cut back on spending.

Do more in that workout.

Temporary changes can lead to lifetimes of differences. The changes start from enduring the situations and not escaping.

Escaping in these sorts of contexts only merges you onto the highway for continued unhappiness and failure. By avoiding problems in your life, they continue to grow and fester until they are multiples worse. That drink you cracked open after work became an alcoholic habit 2 years later. That argument you didn’t finish with your spouse led to more arguments and divorce. Spending money on lottery tickets made your children go hungry. Quitting early in that workout led you to ultimately cancel your membership. This is what happens when you choose to escape.

Choosing to run becomes a habit you turn to. By standing up to the battles life throws at you, you are more capable of competing, finding answers, and being the authors of your own happiness. When you endure, nothing can break you.