A wise man once said, “There is a sickness that plagues everyone.” No one is immune to this sickness. An even scarier thought is that most people are perfectly fine with living in this sickness. This sickness has plagued all of human kind since the beginning of our existence. It will not go away, and it will never leave us. The scariest part of this sickness is that very few people have actually been cured and stayed that way. We may be rid of it for a time, but eventually, it will come back and creep into our lives again. It is something that takes absolute control over everything: our thoughts, our actions, our heart and our souls. This sickness is complacency.
Complacency is the sickness that is responsible for the crushing of hopes and dreams. Being OK with the way that you are creates a person who does not want to work hard. These people are OK just floating along and not doing anything that is not required of them. Then one day they will come to the end of their lives, look back, and ask the question, “What happened? Where did my life go?”
After these questions they will then seek to blame everyone and everything for not being able to succeed. Excuses are the things that follow blame, but often these go hand in hand. Starting out small, excuses tend to grow into more serious things. They start out like, “I would have done X if Y had not happened." These small movements are for small projects such as being late to work or forgetting to put in dinner. They then grow to "I would have been a pro football player if I had not had a kid in my 20s." As true as these excuses can be, they do not make up for the fact that X did not happen. Complacency leads to this sense of regret later on. In the moment, complacency seems like the best option. It is the easy thing to do. We are taught from a very young age that nature and energy take the path of least resistance. They do not like to be challenged and they do not like the thought of having to do more work than needed. This creates complacency. I am OK with where I'm at in life. I make a good salary, my grades are good, and everything should be fine. This is the root of the sickness, sadly. There is only one cure for this sickness, and that is both contentment and drive.
I say that you need both contentment and drive for two reasons. Contentment because being content is completely different from complacency. Being content means to be satisfied and to be at peace. Complacency is when someone can see the need to improve and chooses not to. I believe that you must be content with not being complacent. I believe that you can look at everything you have and say, "I am happy with what I have." This leads me to the next point, which is drive. I am a person who is content with being driven. I also believe that you can be content and still look for improvements and pursue them. I will not be complacent with just doing the bare minimum. I wish to seek the next level. I have to be able to see the growth in my own life and in general because I am content with the pursuit of the impossible. So I ask you today, are you content with being complacent or are you content with the unknown and the pursuit of the impossible?
