You Can’t Shortcut the Process

When I was young, there were many things I didn’t understand. But there was always someone older around who would say, “Don’t worry, if you live long enough, you’ll understand.”

Perhaps you’ve heard some of these lessons before:

• There is no victory without a battle.
• There is no testimony without a test.
• Success is a journey, not a destination.
• The doing is more important than the outcome.

Now, a year shy of 70, I get it.

Recently, I overheard a group of mothers lamenting their struggle to get their grown sons to leave home. They couldn’t understand why—after providing them with everything they needed, including money, clothes, cars, insurance, a place to sleep and food—these young men wouldn’t get off the couch and get a job.

They might not understand, but I do.

If you spend your life taking care of your children’s every need, always bailing them out of trouble, and shielding them from struggle, what do you expect? A child who never learns responsibility will grow into an adult who avoids it.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Black women need to stop coddling our Black boys.

As Denzel Washington’s character said in Remember the Titans:

“The world don't give a damn about how sensitive these boys are, especially the young Black ones. You ain't doing them a favor by patronizing them. You’re crippling them; you’re crippling them for life.”

To illustrate this, let me share this story.

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.

One day, a small opening appeared. He sat and watched as the butterfly struggled to push its body through the tiny hole. It fought for hours but suddenly stopped making progress, appearing stuck.

Wanting to help, the man took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining part of the cocoon. The butterfly emerged easily—but its body was swollen, and its wings were small and shriveled.

The man expected the wings to expand and strengthen, but they never did. That butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling, but never able to fly.

What the man didn’t understand was that the struggle to emerge from the cocoon was necessary. It was God’s way of forcing fluid from the butterfly’s body into its wings, preparing it for flight. By removing the struggle, the man unintentionally crippled the butterfly for life.

Our struggles make us stronger. Without challenges, we never grow, and without growth, we never reach our full potential. It’s important to tackle life’s difficulties on our own rather than relying on others to carry us.

Failure is not the end of the road—it’s part of the journey. Success takes time, and you cannot shortcut the process. Because in the end, what you achieve is not nearly as important as who you become through the struggle.

Until you figure that out, you may always have an unwanted houseguest.