For our family’s exploration of beautiful Paris, my wife did a tremendous job of reserving a perfect little cottage only a few blocks from the famous avenue of Champs Élysées. Less than a 10-minute walk from shops to explore, restaurants to splurge, deserts to indulge in, and majestic monuments in every direction.
One of my favorite monuments to view during our trip was the Arc de Triomphe. In the middle of all the craziness of Champs Élysées stands this magnificent monument towering over the area. With this incredible monument combined with the energy and busyness of all Champs Élysées has to offer, the traffic in this area is what you’d expect – crazy.
Most of our European trip our family resorted to utilizing all different types of public transportation to explore at a reasonable price. A couple of times in Paris we opted for an Uber which due to the location of our cottage, would inevitably have to go through the crazy traffic around the Arc de Triomphe.
As I’m watching our driver enter the path around the Arc de Triomphe, there are cars merging in from all different angles, little to no lines understanding where lanes would be, and essentially watching chaos ensue each second of the day around this magnificent monument. But what I see as chaos wondering how we’re going to get out of this circle of car anarchy, here sits our driver, calm as can be. What I view as chaos is his normal.
After we ended up at our destination (all in one piece) I was reminded of an important lesson. When you’re consistently putting yourself in a state of difficulty or chaos, it no longer takes the shape of difficulty or chaos in your mind. With enough opportunities facing this state of difficulty, the mind converts chaos into normalcy.
Think from a working out perspective, if you put yourself consistently in a state of challenging yourself and facing tough trials, difficulty eventually converts to normalcy. If at work you’re constantly seeking complex situations or projects, when something gets thrown on your desk in the future that is difficult, your mind will see it as normal. When it comes to relationships, if you’re willing to have the difficult conversations consistently, when times get tough, having that difficult conversation becomes a norm.
We all understand chaos happens in our lives in a variety of ways at a randomness of times. When this randomness occurs, it can be a shock to us because we haven’t been open to facing difficulty in the past. Or it could become a state of normalcy because we’ve embraced difficulty consistently.
Take your step: the next time you face something difficult and there’s some discretion to whether you have to go through it or can bypass it, take time to pause. Reflect on whether you want to be someone that chooses the tougher path and consistently takes on the difficulty or if you only want to settle for bypassing the struggle. Challenge yourself to invest in the difficulty today so that down the road, difficulty will become normal.