The Best Path to Success Is the One You Don’t Want to Take
Eat everything on your plate before you ask for more.
Every Sunday at lunchtime I sit with my wife and boys around our kitchen table and argue about food.
My boys–four and one–eat all their fruit or chips and hardly touch their sandwich. Without fail, as soon as one of them finishes his side dish he’ll ask for more. That’s where the argument starts.
It’s usually around this time my wife tells them, “First eat your sandwich, then you can have more of what you want.”
Through protest, the boys nibble down few more bites. They will eat just enough to get what they want. It’s funny until you realize most adults approach life the same way–wishing for more instead of making the most of what you have.
In the middle of our lunchtime drama a few weeks ago, I said something that was probably meant more for me than for my kids. “You need to eat everything on your plate before you ask for more.”
It’s a simple but powerful idea. The best path to success is to make the most of what you already have. You already have enough on your plate, you don’t need any more until you eat what you have. There’s just one problem.
You always want something different than what’s right in front of you.
But success comes when you make the most of what you have. You don’t need more until you eat what’s on your plate.
Your Biggest Mistake
You think you deserve better without any effort. It’s okay, most people feel this way. But it’s holding you back.
I know, you think you should be further along. You’re frustrated and you wonder if you will ever get to live the life you want.
What you’re doing now prepares you for what’ next. You will gain experience, skills, and wisdom from your current situation that will help you when you move on. That’s why it’s foolish to wish away your current circumstances without trying to grow through them.
You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow. — Marcus Aurelius
This quote reminds me of how easy it is to waste your life. Rather than engaging with your life as it is, you’d rather wait for:
- Better conditions.
- Another job.
- Another city.
- More money.
- A fresh start.
That’s what I mean when I say you need to eat what’s on your plate before you ask for more.
Eating what’s on your plate means making the most out of what you have. It is hard because it forces you to slay your ego every day. It requires you to suspend your fantasies of what life might be like if that one thing in your life were different.
When you’re going through a difficult time, the most important thing you can do is show up every day. I know you want to give up or put it off until tomorrow. But remember, you could be good today.
Take Life as It Comes
Do you constantly imagine how your life could be better if things were different?
Most people find it easier to live in a fantasy than in the reality of their life. That’s why social media is so addictive — you get to create the illusion of the life you want.
But building the life you want in real life means you have to eat what’s on your plate. You work with the tools you have–the crappy job, the difficult marriage, the limited funds–and turn them into something useful.
It’s what the German philosopher Frederich Nietzsche meant by amor fati, or love of fate.
“The love of fate” sounds pretty nihilistic doesn’t it? Like you might as well love what life gives you because you can’t do anything about it. But that’s not true.
According to Nietzsche, amor fati is the only way to have a life worth living.
“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it — all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary — but love it.” — Frederich Nietzsche
Don’t waste your life with wishful daydreaming about how your life should be different. Work with what you have. You can’t change your circumstances by wishing, only by working.
The power of amor fati is that it doesn’t waste time on fantasies of how things should be. As Ryan Holiday says, “It only looks at what’s happening with enough strength to say, ‘I have what it takes to make this good for me.’” It doesn’t mean things won’t change, it means you find gratitude and not bitterness for the way things are.
Amor fati saves you from the frustration of passively waiting for things to change on their own and puts you in charge of your reaction.
When you eat what’s on your plate, you are practicing amor fati.
It Comes Down to This
There are things you can learn where you are right now that will help you in the future. But if you spend all your time wishing for something different without first making the most of what you have, you’ll always be unhappy.