{"id":327,"date":"2005-07-17T07:47:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-17T07:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/2005\/07\/up-for-the-challenge\/"},"modified":"2005-07-17T07:47:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-17T07:47:00","slug":"up-for-the-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/2005\/07\/up-for-the-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"Up For The Challenge?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Or, How Difficult Do You Want To Make This?)<\/font><\/p>\n

There is a difference between setting yourself a challenge to which you can rise, and making your life difficult. I am rarely sure which is which in my life. I set challenges for myself, I strive to meet them, and I frequently wonder why I bother.<\/p>\n

Striving is in itself a strange verb [Middle English striven, from Old French estriver, from estrit, estrif, quarrel. See strife<\/a>.]<\/i><\/font> which doesn’t find its way into every day conversation.<\/p>\n

“Oowite mate?” “How you doing?” “Still striving?” “Yes but the pay is shit” – you don’t hear that very often.<\/p>\n

Life, it may be observed, is for most people at least a struggle, if not a painful process of serial disappointment, without the added pressure of striving. I have adopted an entire methodology, no, perhaps a better, simpler word would be attitude, of insouciance, which I wear like a comfortable linen suit in need of laundering, not because I am naturally slack, but rather to counter-balance my own talent for over-achievement.<\/p>\n

I am aware that this will appear to be insufferable vanity to some modest types. All I can say is, vanity is something to which I aspire, and if I keep going on boosting the old self-esteem, there is a slim chance that by the time I leave you this evening, I may have developed just the tiniest shred.<\/p>\n

I noticed after a while (I must have been about 30) that a lot of people seemed to have a very different strategy to mine when it came to self-advancement. Their aim was entirely based on becoming Comfortable<\/i>. They were looking for their Niche<\/i>. They wanted a Career Path<\/i>, with Good Holidays<\/i> and regular Salary Reviews<\/i>. After a period of Youthful Discovery<\/i> they intended to find their Ideal Partner<\/i>, Settle Down<\/i> in a Nice Place<\/i> and Breed<\/i>. During their long, fruitful lives, they might Scuba<\/i> or perhaps, Trek<\/i> in some exotic location, South East Asia or South America, perhaps. They would develop a taste for Wine<\/i> and join a Wine Club<\/i>. When bored in later life, before settling down to Golf<\/i> and\/or the odd game of Scrabble<\/i>, they might risk an illicit Affair<\/i>, and depending on how it went, another, or even perhaps, Divorce<\/i> and Re-Marriage,<\/i> all of it safely within the predictable lines drawn out by RoSPA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By the time I was 40 I had worked out that I had this apparently irremovable habit of making my life difficult for myself, and that I was spending a lot of time recovering from hitting the high-jump bars I was attempting to leap over. “Set realistic goals” became my mantra.<\/p>\n

“Oowite mate?” “How you doing?” “Still striving?” “Yes, but now I set realistic goals, the pay has improved” – I don’t say that very often.<\/p>\n

The things is, comfort for me is not based on any of those things. I wouldn’t mind the trek or the scuba, but remaining in one well-paid place doing one kind of thing for 44 weeks a year in order to get those brief moments of release is on the one hand, too comfortable, and on the other, ridiculously demanding. <\/p>\n

I used to work at the Tate Gallery and a more enlightened employer it would be difficult to find anywhere in the world, but one hot summer’s day, I upped and left, in order to go and find a woman I was infatuated with at the time. It needn’t have been a woman, it could have been a song I needed to write, or a picture I needed to make, or a tree I needed to climb. I shall always remember Ian McN’s raised eyebrows as I walked out, clearly unable to take the cool corridors full of tourists and guards for a moment longer. Conversely, put me in a club so hot that the walls are constantly wet with human moisture, controlling a sound desk with a PA so loud that it exceeds the legal noise level of a jet aircraft at take-off, struggling to satisfy the band, the band’s manager and the club owner who are all making different demands upon me at five minute intervals, and I will thrive.<\/a><\/p>\n

Someone once said to me that they thought it was important to me that I was first, but it’s really not about that at all. It’s about being in a different game altogether, one which doesn’t seek comfort as a reward, or even, reward as a reward. It is about being there in that moment when after a week or a month or a year of struggle, without a worry or care of consequences, I realise that I have come into that place where all disappointment falls away, all pain is nullified, and the simple process of following the path I have created is enough. <\/p>\n

If other people are with me, joy, but I no longer demand or expect their presence.<\/p>\n

I am rewarded by that in a way I cannot explain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Or, How Difficult Do You Want To Make This?) There is a difference between setting yourself a challenge to which you can rise, and making your life difficult. I am rarely sure which is which in my life. I set challenges for myself, I strive to meet them, and I frequently wonder why I bother. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[780],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funky-original","tag-funky-original"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothersideofeverything.com\/flip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}