The PATH Framework To Reinterpret Struggle

Back in 2016, I lost my grandmother.

She raised me along with my father and grandfather.

I took it pretty bad.

I don’t think it’s not the reason I did nothing but smoke and play League of Legends all day, but it definitely increased it.

I wanna say it was about 2018 when I went to my doctor for a checkup and mentioned how I was still affected by losing my grandma, and he recommended I see a “specialist.”

I went to see this specialist, and turns out, I’m a bipolar schizophrenic with ADD.

I started experimenting with meds for it because I was particularly having bouts of manic and depressive episodes (that’s what being bipolar means, not to be confused with multiple personality disorder).

We were looking for meds that wouldn’t give me heavy side effects.

So I was depressed most of the time.

And because I was doing nothing but smoking and playing LoL all day every day, I was at home 99% of the time.

Around the holidays, my cousin called me to ask me if I wanted to come over for a Christmas dinner.

I would’ve normally declined, but something in me decided to go.

This lead to me meeting my niece for the first time since she could walk and talk.

We were playing and she asked my cousin if I could sleep over their place.

This lead to me babysitting my niece for all of the beginning of 2019.

Which lead to me stopping the smoking and playing LoL.

Which lead to me getting a message from my cousin in Korea telling me to fly over.

I did.

This lead to me actually doing research on diet and weight training.

I started developing adversarial growth — which is the capacity to grow forward.

This means that you don’t just return to your old self, you reach a higher level of functioning (or thriving — meaning you actually move beyond how you were before the trauma) because you took care of the obstacle — the obstacle being my depression.

Which lead to me coming back and being in the best shape of my life.

With the confidence I had, this lead to me deciding I wanted to start dating.

I was sort of working on a mini “Path to Mastery” that I didn’t realize at the time.

If you have a “growth mindset,” you don’t see hard work as a sign of failure. Instead, you see the struggle as the “path to mastery.”

Challenges are viewed as chances to improve rather than threats to who you are, making the discomfort a necessary part of the learning journey.

But it’s not like I had an impressive online dating experience or anything.

Anyway, I first I needed to have a good bio.

Worked on the right things to say about myself: what was useless, what was cringe, what was useful, what didn’t work, what worked, etc.

Along with the bio was the photos.

I took a photo I took when I came back from Korea: in good shape, dressed clean, fresh haircut (I cut my hair in Korea that I grew for maybe 9 years — it was as long as my belt line.)

I also used photos that I didn’t take myself because I read somewhere I shouldn’t have all my photos as selfies because it would show I don’t know people enough to take pictures of me… or something like that.

Once I started getting matches, my next obstacle was messages.

On my little mini path to mastery again…

Next obstacle was the date itself.

I’ve been on online dates before, but now there was a system… a process.

My first date was a disaster.

I showed up at the meet spot: public space where there’s people, around noon…

Then I called the girl…

She forgot we had a date.

Red flag.

But I made myself stay and go on the date because that’s what I went there to do.

She rushed to get ready and meet me.

The date itself was fine.

We were telling each other about ourselves, telling stories…

We had some things in common.

But after the date was over, nothing developed.

I didn’t really care because all I could think was that she didn’t care about me enough to put our date in her phone to remind her.

So I moved on.

Matched with someone else, sending messages, arranged a date.

Date #2: public place again, but this time, around dinner time — we went out for dinner.

Told each other about ourselves, told the stories that got good reactions from the last date, plus others…

Even made a 2nd date.

Second date was movie and dinner.

After the 2nd date, we got to the point where we were texting each other most, if not, every night.

Then she said she was going on vacation with her girls.

Which was fine…

If she didn’t lie about it.

At this time, I still had my Tinder account.

I was checking out who I matched with (it wasn’t like it was a lot).

And the very first girl I see was her!

I don’t know why I would see her again if I already matched with her, but there she was.

Now, I say she was lying about it because I’m just realizing now that I wouldn’t have been able to see her profile if she was on a cruise somewhere in the middle of the ocean like she said she was.

But on top of that, on her profile, she was inviting other men to party with her.

I took offense to that but I wasn’t emotional about it.

Looked in the mirror, said to myself, “You’re awesome,” and moved on.

That night, I swiped right on someone — spoiler: she’s my wife now.

The next morning, I saw we matched!

We messaged and arranged a date.

Public place again, dinner, told stories that worked, told other stories…

But I noticed that on the other dates, I was doing most of the talking.

On this one, she was.

It was quite refreshing.

Then we arranged a 2nd date.

And, as they say, the rest is history.

None of this would’ve happened if it wasn’t for my “Post-Traumatic Growth” — this is the positive psychological change that happens specifically because you had to struggle with a difficult situation.

My adversity was a catalyst to trigger meaningful growth and evolution.

I had unknowingly went through the PATH Framework during that dating chapter of my life.

Now that I have it, I’m gonna have to remember to use it anytime I feel something in the way that may stop me from continuing.

I hope it can help you before you end up making the biggest mistake of your life or something.

Stop assuming difficulty means failure.

Remember when I had to go through the whole dating process?

It was difficult at first when all I knew was you swipe right until you match with someone… when no one was swiping right on me.

But I didn’t take it as failure.

I took it as a chance to see how I can end up matching with someone… and take it from there.