The Effort Tax: What You Owe Yourself Before Life Owes You Anything.

We are, in many ways, our own worst enemies. Not because life is particularly cruel or because the odds are stacked higher against us than they are against anyone else—but because we’ve trained ourselves to believe they are. We victimize ourselves at every chance we get. Everyone is depressed after a few years of highschool struggle. Everyone has trauma after a couple broken friendships they sidm’t make efforts to fix. We give up before the battle even begins, convinced that trying is pointless because we’ve already lost.

Somewhere along the way, we learned helplessness. Maybe it was from a teacher who never saw potential in us. Maybe it was from a string of failures that felt like natural parts of us we can't shed off. Maybe it was just easier to believe that we weren’t the problem—that life was. I mean,we were born into a world where an average person will believe all their problems are because the world is cruel. And so, we sit in that belief, letting it calcify, letting it become the excuse for why we don't move, don't try, don’t even hope.

But here’s the thing: we owe ourselves the effort, at least. Not perfection. Not immediate success. But effort.

Some of us grew up believing we weren’t the “brilliant” ones. Not the kid who topped the class, not the one teachers beamed at, not the prodigy. And so, we internalized mediocrity like a birthright. I’m just not that smart. I’m not that talented. We whispered it so many times it became our truth.

But effort outranks talent in the long run. The smartest person in the room who doesn’t try will always be surpassed by the one who keeps showing up, keeps pushing, keeps doing the work. Intelligence isn’t a fixed state; neither is failure. And yet, so many of us have surrendered before we’ve even fought.The Obsession with Past Failures

Then there’s the other trap—the endless loop of reliving what went wrong. We get stuck in the wreckage of our past mistakes, holding on to them like proof that we’re doomed to fail again. We turn them over in our heads, analyze them to exhaustion, pick at them like wounds that never heal because we won’t stop touching them.

But a past mistake is not a prophecy. Failing before doesn’t mean you’ll fail forever—unless you make it your identity. Some people cling to failure because it gives them an excuse to never try again. I’ve already messed up, so what’s the point? But the point is, life moves forward whether we do or not. The past won’t adjust itself to make you feel better, but the future? That’s still up for grabs.

We owe ourselves the effort to try—even when it feels useless. To start over—even when it’s humiliating. To put one foot in front of the other—even when progress is invisible. We are not owed an easy life, but we do owe ourselves the dignity of not giving up on it before we’ve truly begun.

If you’ve been stuck, if you’ve been waiting for a sign to get up and start again—this is it. I don’t care if you’ve failed before. I don’t care if you’re convinced you’re not “that kind of person.” Try anyway. Push anyway. Put in the work anyway.

The life you want will not come find you. It will not come knocking at your door while you sit there, wallowing in what-ifs. It will demand movement. It will demand effort. And you owe yourself that much. Stop putting on the victim garment of “life is unfair”.

So, what’s one thing you’ve already given up on before even trying? Maybe today is the day you put in the effort—just to see what happens.

Because you owe yourself that much.🥂