Don't Flee from Difficulty

Last night, I did something difficult, something that I've wanted to do for a long time, but lacked the will and the courage to do it. I ran a game of D&D at my local hobby shop. I've run games of D&D before, for a handful of friends and for a group of kids at a library, but this felt different. The bar was set higher, and I was intimidated. For a while, I kicked around the idea of running a game, but I kept finding excuses not to. I needed a push. Two days ago, I got the push I needed, I made the commitment to run last night's game, and I feel like it went fairly well, despite a few hiccups.

One of those hiccups was the start of the adventure. Instead of thrusting the characters into unavoidable danger, like a good DM would have, I allowed the characters to see the danger approaching from a distance, and the characters, understandably, went the other way. They were wise and cautious. They realized that a powerful magical problem was happening, and they didn't want anything to do with it. They were reluctant to pursue the adventure, just as I had been reluctant to pursue running the adventure.

But that's not heroic. That's not how characters (or aspiring DMs) gain experience. The only way to become better at overcoming difficulty is to actually face that difficulty, and I'm glad I did. People don't become heroes by chickening out and only doing things that are easy for them. People become heroes by exercising courage and by pushing themselves to do good things, even when it's difficult.

Now, running a D&D game isn't really a good thing, except insomuch as it brought a handful of people a bit of momentary happiness, but running a D&D game is a difficult thing, and the better I get at forcing myself to do difficult things, the better I'll get at doing good things that are also difficult. Too often, I take the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, one cannot get to the Celestial Kingdom by following that path. The path to the Celestial Kingdom is difficult. To get there, we have to learn to resist the temptation to flee from difficulty.