Can you handle the truth?

Some men [and women] succeed because they cheerfully pay the price of success, while others — though they claim ambition — are unwilling to pay that price.

Boom.

A number of weeks ago, I discussed my firm belief that people do what they want to do. Their lives, for the most part, are what they are because of what they chose to do, because of the behavior they wanted to engage in, day after day.

As I've always, always, always said, there are exceptions, there are extenuating circumstances, there are bad people and bad things over which we have no control. (We've been irreparably harmed by such things, as many have.) But no matter those circumstances, how we deal with the day to day is still largely a matter of choice. (Just ask Corrie Ten Boom.)

In today's lesson, Gary Ryan Blair has utterly profound advice:

Choose Your Suffering

No one wants to suffer. What in the world does that mean?

Every goal we set and every success we hope and dream for has a price tag. Sometimes that price tag is enormous in it's requirement of time, resources, pain, suffering, dedication, sacrifice, and (perhaps most importantly) the opportunity cost. But perspective comes when you acknowledge the fact that:

 The suffering cost of failure is always higher than the suffering price of success.

Here is the kicker, you have to pay for one or the other! You have no choice!

• You can suffer through exercise and healthy eating or suffer through poor health and the doom of “fat clothes.”
• You can suffer through financial discipline and delayed gratification or you can suffer through stress and debt (and sleeplessness).
• You can suffer through the study, expense, years of poverty, and grind of college or you can suffer through a lower salary for the rest of your life.

Every choice has a cost. Every action has a consequence. Make sure that the suffering you endure is the suffering you choice — and that it's worth the end result.

Join me in the 100 Day Challenge!