Why You Should Consider Opening a Restaurant

I’m writing this essay en route to a weekend excursion to Bloomington, Illinois and, as a side effect of driving with my dad, I was listening to a podcast. This particular one was entitled “Why You Shouldn’t Open a Restaurant.” An esteemed food critic decided to try partnering with some other men to open a German/Californian bar/restaurant. He details why it would be a terrible idea to open a restaurant based on his awful personal experiences with the topic. Admittedly, this guy had a crazy story and an already busy life. He probably shouldn’t have done it. But what I didn’t like was his case that because adversity is inevitable you should not bother trying to open a restaurant. It will be uncomfortable and time-consuming and therefore you shouldn’t even bother trying.

The critical problem that this idea presents and is also insinuated by the quote above is that personal comfort is the paramount objective of human life. Given this principle, in order to accomplish this objective, you have to apply this destructive tenant to your life: If it is difficult to do, it is not worth doing.

Success comes at a cost. I’m hoping this is less controversial than the essay that I wrote last week, but let me prove that it isn’t always intended to be easy. Any of the most difficult projects ever accomplished have been difficult. Ask the businessmen that built America including John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the list goes on. Building empires weren’t comfortable. Creating technology that our country is built upon means setback after setback after setback. They were driven by problems that needed solutions and the solutions were not simple addition. They were fifteen-page geometry proof problems and they solved them with grit and hard work. Many started from nothing and built this country.

Even on a more personal level, the same concept applies. Do you want to lose weight? Well, if it’s too hard, you should just accept being fat because uncomfortable things aren’t meant for you. Want to make changes with bad habits or relationships? It’s going to feel harder than it should, so maybe don’t bother trying.

Let me say, unlike the quote from last week, there is some practical truth to this quote. There are some things we shouldn’t attack for the reason that they are too hard and allow me to explain that. There are some things that I should not attempt because of the talents God has given me. I LOVE the game of baseball. I’m horrible at it, but if you know me, you will quickly find out that the game of baseball is one of my favorite things in the world. I am finishing up training to be an umpire, I watch my brother’s games, and the MLB is as fun as it gets. I’m around the game constantly. Notably, I never played. If I were to sit down and say “I want to fulfill my dream of being a major league baseball player,” that would be ridiculous.

Of course, if I had that talent, I would love to use it, but I’m not that great at baseball or even basic mechanics that are used across the board with sports. I could put 25,000 hours into the game and still be an infinitely better writer with 3,000 hours than I would be a baseball player. That’s my natural gifts. It’s not a goal we should pursue in the first place. Sometimes your other priorities should take top shelf. As in the case with the food writer, he had a newborn daughter, lots of projects, and taking on the ownership of a popular restaurant in the Bay Area wasn’t a good idea for him. There are reasons to say no. You can’t take on everything, and you should work with the talents that you have. But if you want to make a change in your life, accomplish a goal, you fill in the blank, I can’t think of a more destructive thing to tell people that: “If it’s hard you should stop.”

Here’s the thing, success on any kind of scale worth having is going to be difficult to attain. I would expect that in most situations it will be painful. If you show up to the playing field expecting not to deal with pain, you should expect not to win. The world is competitive, it is filled with sin, and it’s going to be difficult. So, you can embrace that difficulty, or you can sit on the bench because it’s too difficult and waste away watching TV and embracing social media. That’s a choice you can make and I can’t write enough to make you make the right choice.

There are two choices. The first is that you take the easy path and do nothing difficult. It will be comfortable, and pretty soon it will be over. People don’t regret the money they didn’t have or the comfort they didn’t have on their deathbeds when it all is meaningless. But you are welcome to live in comfort and ease. There’s no reward for the people who do that. But you can do it.

What people do regret on their deathbeds is the lives they didn’t live. And that comes from people who want the easy way out. You have to make the choice right now that the easy way out is never going to be the best way out. It’s going to hurt, it might cost you the respect of those you love. Some of these crazy essays I’ve written have done that to people already, but I speak for truth, not friends. You have to understand that you are not in life as a popularity contest. You are here to make a difference in this world for the glory of God.

Here’s the thing: people aren’t going to admit that they support the ideals of this quote. None of us want to believe we take the easy way out. It’s easy to shake your head and wonder how someone could ever say something so ridiculous. But the reality of the matter is that this is not a quote we obey in speech but in deed, and we are, most us, taking the easy way out. I’m not writing this essay to condemn laziness and get on with our lives. I’m writing this essay to have us stop taking the easy way out. This requires self-evaluation and a decision to make a change in ourselves. I’m not saying there are people like this, I’m saying we all have the tendency to go for the easy way and, like the author of this quote, we justify it, and we need to stop, right not, finding excuses for ourselves to live in comfort and luxury and start finding the reasons why we must work hard, even when painful, for change in our lives and the world around us.