#14 What are you up against?

5 September 2025

“My torment, my disgrace was complete. After a few days of sulking and self-pity, I slowly, and with growing determination, began to formulate a plan, a way to get back at my tormentors. I would go to school… I would apprentice in France. I would endure anything: evil drunk chefs, crackpot owners, low pay, terrible working conditions; I would let sadistic, bucket-headed French sous-chefs work me like a Sherpa. But I would be back. I would do whatever was necessary…” – Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential

I just turned 33 today. Which means I’m almost a third of a century old.

Naturally, my next thought has been: what am I going to do with the other two-thirds (that I’ll surely get)?

What really leapt out at me from the above Bourdain quote was the line I would endure anything.

That’s the big question, isn’t it… What are you willing to endure?

School doesn’t really prepare you for that question. It doesn’t exactly sit you down and say: “By the way, the real world is going to throw some total nonsense your way. Here’s the list.” Instead, you walk into the job market like someone who packed flip-flops for Everest.

Rather than entering the Real World with a clear understanding of what’s really coming, we get up to speed with the same old subjects we’ve had since Victorian times. Shouldn’t we be more proactive about warning kids of the challenges facing them in the 21st Century?

Of course, there’s the other side: If you could see every single obstacle in advance, you’d probably never start. If I’d been aware of the uphill battle that is learning Spanish – tables of verb conjugations, subjunctive moods, rolled R’s – I might have quietly backed away and stayed in 🇬🇧.

Still, sticking your head in the sand isn’t the solution either. Here’s another quote I saved from my new favourite book, Meditation for Mortals:

‘What is true is already so. Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse. Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away. And because it’s true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn’t there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.’ – Eugene Gendlin

The hard thing is already there, whether you admit it or not. You might as well look it in the eye.

So the trick is somewhere in the middle. Don’t pretend the challenges don’t exist, but don’t stare at the whole mountain either, or you’ll never start climbing. Just break it down into little bricks. Tiny actions, stacked one on top of another.

That’s what every goal really is anyway. A messy wall of small, not-so-glamorous actions, stacked on top of each other until one day you step back and say, “Oh wow, look what I built!”

What I built this week was a little tool. The point of it is to help you lay out the path for any goal or challenge, and see what’s in front of you. It’s my attempt at revealing what you’re really up against.

Tool: The Path Ahead

Give it a try! Then let me know: what would you endure to get where you’re going?

If you’re curious, I’ve shared one of my own goals on that page, along with the advice I got back.