True living requires heart, will, and risk.

Yet looking closely reveals this is not as easy as it looks, and that we do not have heart, will, or risk for a great many things.

And this is exactly the point.

It would mean nothing if we had heart, will, and risk, for everything.

Passion would spread too thin, and there would simply be nothing special in the ‘everything’ we would be about.

But take down the options, restrict the expressions, put forth some limitations and constraints, require a few hoops, and all of a sudden the ones who make it through stand out and catch our attention.

Nothing comes easy. For easy makes everything commonplace. Easy diminishes our passion, and counteracts our heart.

Heart is proven through the fire, through the difficulties and through much pain; we do not yet know the depth of heart when all is easy.

It is the same with will and with risk.

Both need some tension. Both require push-back.

Without tension or push-back our internal muscles are weak and under-developed.

And we never mature. Our resilience is stunted, our stamina is crippled, and what heart we did have is swallowed up in disillusionment.

The recipe, therefore, for success:

May you have one part heart and five parts difficulty. For your heart will grow larger in the face of trouble. And a heart multiplied results in much.

May you have one part will and ten parts tension. For as your will is challenged, it find its strength, and once having faced the scariest of things, it fears no more.

May you have one part risk and twenty parts push-back. For risk is proven in the fire, purified in the fire, and honed in the fire.

For, without the fire, the sword is dull.

Without challenge, strength atrophies.

Without tension, the heart grows dim.

Therefore, look closely at the difficulty, examine the fire, detail the push-back, and you will begin to see your purpose.

For with your strengths shining larger than the difficulties, your heart speaking clearer than the conflicts, and with your will putting forth action regardless of push-back…

Don’t let the hard stuff have the last say.