Of Course It's Hard

     One of the things commonly uttered by many a young person is something along the lines of, "if it were right, it wouldn't be this hard." This is truly one of my least favorite sentences. It is uniquely idiotic, pithy, and unhelpful. How, you wonder, do I have the right to speak on this? I am one with a long history of being beset by this completely useless idea.

    I spent much of my angsty, angry, and lonely teenage and early college years held captive by the idea that hard was bad. I seemed often to be seeking ways to avoid difficulty. This, I believe, is quite common. It is, perhaps, a maxim, that when facing or contemplating the possibility that something will be unpleasant, it is logical to seek a way not to experience it. 

    Unfortunately for us, good things aren't easy. All kinds of harmful things come easily. It is easier to hit snooze than to wake up the first time an alarm rings (guilty). It is easier to eat sugar than it is to eat vegetables (or at least to enjoy them). It is more fun to spend money than to save it (for most). But any great endeavor has required endurance, grit, and an unequivocal commitment to completing the task. Everest was scaled, at last, as a result of this kind of attitude. The Sistine Chapel's ceiling took Michelangelo two years, and cost him his back's health. There are countless other examples of incredibly great lengths humans have gone to, in order to do things which were worth it. 

Fortunately for us, good things aren't easy. There is a beauty and grace that can only be encountered in the completion of something agonizingly difficult. 

A few years ago I happened upon a mind trick which has sometimes helped me flip my mind's natural tendency to shy away from unenjoyable things. Rather than asking myself "why?" I needed or wanted or ought do something, I began to ask myself, "why not?" This additional word served to reveal just how often my reasons for shying away from something are rather empty and selfish. "Why should I do the dishes? I deserve time to relax and watch a show." Why not do the dishes? Because I don't feel like it." A-ha! I have exposed a comfortable laziness which is all too easy to fall into, for me. 

My students need to hear these ideas. I find that I am often reminding them that the work we are doing or the lessons they are learning are not supposed to be easy. If it were easy, they wouldn't need me. Furthermore, if they don't understand something right away, there is not something broken or deficient in my students. They have simply not dedicated enough hard work to mastering or understanding the concept. To give up after an initial attempt is to believe in a lie or to allow oneself to drop something without really pursuing whether it is possible. 

I am not espousing a black and white ideology here. I am not a dualist. Things are not so simple as that. However, in looking at what has worked and failed in my life and others I have learned about and observed, there is simply no substitute for graft and hard work. The Brits would call this having "a stiff upper lip," or that people ought to "grin and bear it." There are endless idioms centered around this idea, and it is because it has merit. 

American culture is moving (often rightly) toward giving people permission to pursue self-care. However, it's important to draw distinctions between what this is, and what it not. Self-care is not a get-out-of-jail free card which provides permission not to do onerous tasks. 

In a group I go to, one of the adages we come back to when discussing concepts of right and wrong or reasoning out what needs to be done is this one: "The harder thing is usually the right thing." This is not a fun thing to consider, but not all of life is fun. There are so many tasks that require something besides ease and laughter, but, when completed well, can yield ease and laughter. 

So. To the phrase, "It shouldn't have to be this hard!" I reply, "Why not?"