The Grind

"Any idiot can face a crisis – it's day to day living that wears you out." – Anton Checkov.

The above quote sums up one of the secrets of success – and one of the reasons for failure – in people's lives.

First, just because you can deal with a crisis does not mean you can deal with non-crisis issues.  You can rally your energies in the face of a crisis that's great – then again so can many of us, as adrenaline is a wonderful motivator.  In fact I find a surprising amount of people do well in a crisis (often better than they think).

However, dealing with crises is only part of life, and (hopefully) a small part of it.  Dealing with crises is important to survival, but crisis management rarely builds anything.

That's why the day to day living, the daily grind, is the thing you really have to cope with.

Success in life is not dealing with crises (yes they may be opportunities, but don't rely on that).  Success in life is the long-term planning, the long-term work, the hard, daily, nose-to-the-grindstone effort.  Success is what you build in day-to-day living.

Crises are what you cope with to keep those day-to-day plans and efforts going.  Most of us do that far better than we may appreciate.

Look back on your life.  Are you proud of your crisis management – but can you hack the daily effort?

If you can't hack the daily effort, your chances of success are far lower.  You'll need to deal with that.

(Maybe treat your lack of ability to hack the daily effort as a crisis . . .)

– Steven Savage