I first heard the expression “Embrace the suck!” from an interview with David Goggins. It’s a phrase used a lot in military contexts but also in modern self-help contexts like Stoicism. It’s meaning is quite simple – when you find yourself in a situation that’s unpleasant or uncomfortable, don’t complain about it (which doesn’t change anything) but rather welcome it as a stimulator of your growth and development into a better version of yourself.

In other words, if you can’t change the reality, change how you relate to it, how you interpret it.

The phrase is often meant to encourage toughness, the opposite of being sensitive. It conjures up (and is often associated with) images of a tough, young soldier in full gear withstanding incredibly difficult circumstances. But I think it goes well beyond that.

Every leader, every entrepreneur, indeed every one of us will someday find ourselves in circumstances that suck. Life is hard sometimes. We aren’t always in a position to change our realities. Shit happens. How we respond to that shit when it does happen makes a world of difference.

If we start to adopt a victim stance, or whine about how unlucky we are, the external circumstances don’t change AND we make our internal experience of our current reality feel even worse.

On the other hand, if we view every moment of our lives as an opportunity to build our character, to become a better version of ourselves, and to really appreciate the mere fact that there is a reality to be experienced and we are alive to experience it, well, that also doesn’t change the reality, but it can totally alter the quality of our experience in that moment.

I’d like to propose a variation on “embrace the suck”: “Embrace the now”.

“Now” is this moment and whatever your reality is right this minute, pleasant or unpleasant, easy or hard. Sometimes now is wonderful and sometimes now is terrible.

You don’t have to like it. You also don’t have to be resigned to just fatalistically live with it. But what I’m suggesting is that you embrace it, which is to say, get to know it more intimately. Yes, it sucks, but this is what’s happening now, so I might as well be awake to it.

When you do this, you come out of the victim stance. You look around. You notice things. You may see possibilities for action that you didn’t see before. And if nothing else, you remain grateful. Grateful that you get to experience this experience, even if it sucks. You are here.

This isn’t an easy shift to make. It takes practice. Try it out: when you’re in a situation that sucks and there isn’t any immediate action that you can take to change it, explore it. Study it. Try to experience it more fully, rather than blocking it out or bemoaning it. In that moment, it IS your life. Embrace it. Despite the suck.

This is your now. Embrace it.