Do the Hard Stuff

I recently had a major life update. My house finally went under contract. Two years ago, I moved from my house in Edmond, Oklahoma to downtown OKC. Hands down, this was one of the best decisions I have ever made. My main motivation for moving was to be closer to work, which is now a seven minute walk. And for at least a short season, if anything, I wanted to experience life downtown.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but moving downtown gave me extra mental room. My thick skull got a major square footage upgrade. By not having to drive an hour every day, I had so much more time on my hands. Beyond the savings in time, stresses in my life started to dwindle. I didn’t have to worry about traffic or find myself angrily cursing at bad drivers. These things up and vanished. The square footage taken up by these stresses now lay vacant, giving my mental life room to grow. Now when I got angry or frustrated at work, I found that the stress could expand into these vacancies. Like air pressure, when it expands across space, it loses its power, and this is true in my life. My mental barometer kept dropping. Now, what does this have to do with my house going under contract? As my mental pressure kept dissipating, I remained unaware of a new mental shadow that started to loom.

My house never ceased to have problems. I now live 25 minutes away, so going there was a pain. Livng right by work started to spoil me and driving became a chore. My fantasy of having more mental square footage slowly dwindled. The space started to fill with the stress of owning a house that I visited once a month. From mowing regularly, and avoiding Edmond city fines, to fixing broken brick mailboxes, I had to constantly think about the well being of my home, even though I was a terrible homeowner. The stresses that I removed replaced themselves with new stresses.

So as of yesterday, when I signed the contract with the buyer of my home (fingers crossed, it will close in 2 weeks), I realized what a relief it will be to have this house behind me. I will no longer have to think about my next trip to Edmond or when I will mow or go grab the mail. I can focus on the life in front of me, my life downtown, my girlfriend in Norman, and my family in Moore.

While I gained some peace moving downtown, I let myself fill that space with other stresses. I am left wondering if striving for peace is worth it; it seems to be a double-edged sword. I don’t think satisfaction can be found if satisfaction is your goal. My goal was to be closer to work, giving myself more time and peace, yet I created more issues for myself along the way. Overall, I think the move was a net positive, and I am so thankful that I made this decision, but I am left thinking “yep, I’m still a dingus.” I could have done all the hard work to sell the house 2 years ago and cleared this stress from my life. Yet, I let the shadow linger, and it cast a gloom in different parts of my life because I didn’t want to do a challenging thing.

I regret not chasing the harder path and hope to use this story as a reminder to myself in the future that doing the hard things in life is worth it. If you’re going to make room in your life, do the hard work to protect it. Next time I face something daunting, I want to remember this feeling and face the challenge head-on.