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Published on:

20th Dec 2023

What are you willing to struggle for?

It's Wednesday and it's time for some Wit and Wisdom.

This week's wise words come from Mark Manson, the best-selling author known for books with profane titles like Everything is F***ed or The Subtle Act of Not Giving a F***.

In the latter book, he says in order to achieve happiness, you have to do something bold.

Choose something.

Everybody enjoys what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy, and easy life. To fall in love, and have amazing sex, and relationships, to look perfect, and make money, and be popular, and well-respected, and admired, and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when they walk into a room. Everybody wants that. It's easy to want that. A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider is, what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.

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He says happiness requires problems and struggle, and fulfillment comes from finding answers for our struggle.

Whether you suffer from anxiety or loneliness, or obsessive-compulsive disorder, or a d*** boss who ruins half of your waking hours every day. The solution lies in the acceptance and active engagement of that negative experience. Not the avoidance of it. Not the salvation from it.

Or as a wise reader of mine once told me, “put a stake in the ground.”

You never know what you can find where you are.

What do you think?

And what's your struggle?

Let me know what you think in the comments at jamesbrowntv.substack.com

Email: jamesbrowntv@gmail.com

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About the Podcast

All of the Above with James Brown
Exploring ideas big and small with fascinating people
I explore the big ideas that bring us together and meet the people who make them happen.

Musings on news, life, and television. A few minutes a day, five days a week.

Hosted by James Brown is an award winning journalist whose work has appeared on WXXI, PBS, NPR, BBC, and a slew of other places from sea to shining sea. He's the former host of USA TODAY's 5 Things, now The Excerpt. My work is proudly produced in Rochester, New York.

My goal is to create a diverse array of projects in the style of the people I grew up following: like Bill Moyers, Paul Harvey, John Stossel, Charles Osgood, Charlie Rose, Adam Curtis, Tavis Smiley, Douglas Ruskoff, Tony Kornheiser, and Art Bell, with my own twist, of course.

You can find my work anywhere you get your podcasts.

To support my work and tell me what you think join me at JamesBrownTV.substack.com.
Or email me at jamesbrowntv@gmail.com.
You can also leave me a message at 585-484-0339. And yes, I will call you back.
On that note, I'm James Brown, and as always, be well

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