Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy.

The words of Dan Gable — "Once you've wrestled, everything else in life is easy." — echo like the chant of warriors across the ages. They speak not only of the sport of wrestling, but of the eternal struggle between body, mind, and will. Wrestling is among the oldest of contests, demanding strength, endurance, and cunning, but above all, demanding the conquest of the self. Gable, a legendary champion and coach, knew that those who enter the circle of combat and endure its fire gain a strength that makes the trials of ordinary life seem light by comparison. For in wrestling, one learns not merely how to fight another, but how to overcome fear, fatigue, and doubt within oneself.

The origin of this wisdom lies in Gable’s own life. Known as one of the greatest wrestlers in history, he poured himself into discipline so complete that it transformed him. His daily training was not only physical but spiritual, shaping in him the resilience to face pain, loss, and hardship. When he said that life becomes easier after wrestling, he was not exaggerating: he meant that those who have endured such intensity have already learned how to master adversity. The mat becomes a school of life, where each struggle prepares the soul for the greater struggles beyond.

This truth is not confined to wrestling alone, but is reflected in the trials of all who face deep struggle. Consider the story of Theodore Roosevelt, who as a sickly child was told he would never be strong. By discipline and by relentless exertion, he built his body and his spirit until he became one of the most vigorous leaders the world has known. The hardships he endured in his youth gave him the toughness to face war, politics, and loss without breaking. So too, Gable’s words remind us: once you have fought the hardest battles within yourself, all else is but a lesser contest.

Or recall the story of the Spartans at Thermopylae, trained from youth in the hardest conditions. To them, daily life after the rigors of their training was no burden, for they had already faced deprivation, pain, and fear. Their discipline made them unbreakable, so that even against impossible odds, they stood as though carved of stone. Wrestling, in its own way, is the modern echo of such training — a crucible that refines those who endure it into men and women who fear no ordinary hardship.

The lesson of Gable’s words is heroic in its simplicity: if you would live with strength, you must first embrace struggle. Seek not the easy path, for ease breeds weakness. Instead, take up challenges that demand your all, so that when lesser difficulties arise, they will seem light upon your shoulders. The wrestler, the soldier, the laborer who has sweated in toil — these know that comfort is no teacher, but adversity is. And from adversity grows the power to face life unshaken.

The teaching is also motivational: do not flee from the discipline of training in whatever form it comes to you. Your wrestling may not be on the mat; it may be in your studies, in your work, in your personal battles with fear or doubt. Whatever it is, embrace it with the spirit of the wrestler. Push through its pain, and you will find yourself prepared for the rest of life’s trials. For once you have fought the fiercest fight, you need not tremble before the smaller storms.

What, then, should you do? Choose your wrestling. Take up a discipline that tests you, body or mind, and submit to its rigor. Do not complain when it is hard; rejoice, for you are being forged. Persist where others quit, and learn to love the struggle itself, for it is in the struggle that strength is born. When life later demands of you courage, patience, or endurance, you will find that you already possess it, for you have trained upon the mat of hardship.

Thus let this wisdom endure: wrestling is not merely a sport, but a metaphor for all who dare to confront the fiercest trials of life. Those who have entered the circle of struggle and endured it with courage will find, as Gable promised, that everything else is easy. For they have already learned the greatest of truths — that the human spirit, disciplined and unyielding, can overcome anything.