At least once a year, maybe once a quarter, we deal with our taxes. But a quote from Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic made me think about this differently recently.
Everything in life comes with a tax. Pay the taxes of life gladly.
Want a better job? It’s probably going to require some initial learning, extra hours, and harder work aimed at producing meaningful results that may not be necessary in the more comfortable current job you’ve had for a while.
Want to start or own a business? It literally comes with more taxes than you’ve probably ever paid, and also comes with the stress and anxiety taxes associated with managing it all, balancing your life, and wondering where revenue will come from.
Want a family, kids, a house? All of those come with the tax of long-term commitments, even when they’re not fun or easy, constant repairs and health maintenance, and other similar “taxes”.
Taxes are everywhere. Life is full of them. But we get to choose how, when, and with what attitude we pay them.
If they’re a burden to us that we just want to minimize, avoid, or ignore, they’re going to be unpleasant – and will likely pile up and get worse over time.
But if we embrace that work, challenges, struggles, some sacrifice, and a lot of time and effort are necessary to do anything great, we might just embrace paying those “taxes” a little more gladly.
Obviously, this is not about financial taxes. But as a parting thought…is it not even something to be happy about when your literal tax bill goes up? It usually means you’ve earned a pretty good living!
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