The hardest questions in life often have the simplest answers.
Most of the time, we already know the answer. We just don’t want to hear it.
The fantastic Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, calls these “VCR questions.”
Questions where the answer is in the question.
Things like, “How can I talk to her?”
“How do I move out of my parents’ house?”
“How do I drop out of med school?”
“How do I stop smoking?”
“How do I lose weight?”
The answer is painfully obvious when someone else is asking. I bet you could tell me the answer to any of those questions right now.
But there’s a jungle of emotion between us and where we want to be, and it’s full of whispering lies about epic embarrassment.
We are not scared.
We just feel scared, and that can and will pass.
After a few brutal, hacking steps, we almost always find that the brambles only block the entrance to the path.
There’s a very clear route behind them.