The Hurdles
Who We Are, What We Want, And The Barriers In Between
Do you have a vision for your life in one year? Five years? Ten?
Even for those of us who focus on living in the moment, we have dreams, goals, and aspirations.
There will be aspects of our lives that make us feel like we’re stuck. Like we’re not achieving our goals.
One of the struggles of living in the present is knowing that where you are isn’t where you want to be and to get to where you want to be, you know there are barriers stacked up against you.
Most professional athletes make the 110m hurdles race look like a piece of piss. For anybody who hasn’t heard this phrase before, it’s the embodiment of what it means to be British, used to describe something as “rather easy”. Take it. Use it everywhere you go. Your own small slice of British culture.
Life for those of us who aren’t professional athletes, and even those of us who are, can seem like an endless hurdles race. We jump one hurdle and fly face-first into the next. We might get up and throw ourselves over the next hurdle, but then we look up from the ground, drained, and overwhelmed, as the next hurdle towers over us like an unending wall of ice. Sure, we can grab our ice picks and start smashing away, but we know it’s going to take time.
We cycle through easy times and hard times. During easy times, we get into a rhythm. Winning begets more winning, right? To flip another quote on its head, we couldn’t have sad times without happy times.
It arises that sometimes, the hurdles get too much. It can be difficult to enjoy the present when you’re face down on the track, with a seemingly endless row of barriers ahead of you.
Is this why we sometimes have to stop? Do we get tired of jumping hurdles? Of navigating barriers? Do we sometimes have to stop the race, and just enjoy the weather? But then, how do we get better? If we come across a barrier and we just stop, have we given in?
I guess my question is, if we know who we want to be and that there will be barriers to getting there, how do we not stop at a barrier too big?
I think about aspects of my life where I’ve perhaps not achieved as much as I’d hoped. Then there are others where I’ve surpassed what I even believed possible of myself. I’ll speak to those around me I care of, and how they want to be married by 28. Kids by 30.
There are enough barriers in life as it is. Enough hurdles to jump, without us dragging more into the lane, seeking to trip us and overwhelm us. Suppose there are too many barriers, it’s easy to run out of energy and stop running and jumping altogether.
I’m writing this with a lot on my mind. Love. Work. Connection. How we can convince ourselves things are right and wrong for us? Our purpose. What those around us expect of us, which no matter how much we tell ourselves we don’t care for, we most certainly do.
I don’t particularly have a message in mind here, just my thoughts, of which there is a wide buffet of options to choose from. That’s a barrier I faced before writing this piece. What do I want it to say? What do I want to say to the world? What do I want to leave? It’s a group of questions I take into every piece I write. Sometimes it’s good to be structured and organised in writing. For this piece, I decided it’s better to set the list alight. No hindrances. No hurdles.
I am currently, however, bogged down by the hurdles. Most of these hurdles are external. Nobody truly knows me internally, regardless of how much I try to get it down into words, and nobody ever will. Those are hurdles that we can’t control. As much as we try to ignore them, we still have to make the jump, or we stop, and those barriers build up if it’s all we focus on.
It might be time to assess which hurdles are bolted down, and which I can remove. If I remove some, do I go from who I am, to where I want to be in less time? With less effort? It seems we go through periods where it seems many of our hurdles are bolted down. One after the other of half-arsed, lazy leaps over rocks and hard places that we have to navigate in life. It can be draining, but we need to zoom out. It stops. The barriers fade, and we can move our hurdles once again. Less become bolted down. What seem like huge issues at the moment become forgettable blotches on the canvas of our lives. Those of us who have dreams have to keep jumping, but sometimes, it's okay to lay there and rest.
I walked up a mountain this weekend just past with my family. At the end, there’s a lovely pub in the valley bottom. Birds flock around bird feeders. The stream runs along the bottom of the outdoor area, and the mountains loom large in the distance. We were lucky the sun was shining when we arrived.
It’s peaceful. It seems in those moments that there are truly no hurdles. I can just be. I can lay there and rest and that feels nice. I guess I found my message.
I hope you’re well.
Dylan
“Slow down everyone, you’re moving too fast”. I’ve been a fan of Jack Johnson since my auntie and uncle chose his song “Better Together” as their wedding song way back in 2006. I only discovered this song of his last year and it quickly became one of my favourites.