We love transformation stories. An overweight recluse who now has ripped abs and confidence. A homeowner who buys a condemned house and restores it to its 1940s glory. An author who only had ten followers and is now on the bestseller list. We put two pictures side by side and say “See? What a triumph.” But those are lies. That’s not real life. It’s the fallacy of before and after.
Telling a story this way makes us believe that we can get what we want overnight and sets an often unachievable standard. We compare the before to the after image and think what a dream. Now that person has everything they want. We have a tendency to skip all the tumultuous, painful stuff that happens in between because it’s easier to focus on the outcome. Polished edges don’t confront us like real struggle does.
But the truth is neither of those pictures tell the real story. Because real transformation doesn’t sell. Nobody wants to accept that it takes years, even decades to go from point a to point b. We buy into the hype and inevitably set ourselves up for failure and disappointment. I’m not saying transformation isn’t honorable or possible. It just doesn’t happen the way we’ve been told it does.
The only way to transform yourself or what you do is to show up every day and battle your demons. Transformation is more like a rollercoaster. Once you get on you’re committed through the ups and downs, the horrible drops, the stomach churning loops and twists and turns. Sometimes crawling like a snail up a hill. Others going so fast you can’t help but pee a little.
There is no before and after. There is only the constant struggle with many different stops along the way. Are we any less who we are because once upon a time we didn’t have abs, or a successful blog, a gold medal, or an immaculately tiled kitchen? Accomplishments and polish are not what define us. Rather, it’s how we persevere and shape and search and survive that does.
Abs fade. Tiles chip. Careers end. It’s who we are inside, who we keep choosing to be, that person that more often than not misses the mark that is enduring.
There is no before and after. Only the right here, right now.
(The top image is the first time I ever rowed a single. The bottom image is me launching from the dock in Poznan, Poland for a practice before the World Championships in 2009. I love these pictures, but what I love more is the story that happened before, between, and after them.)
