We train ourselves to do what is easy. Finding ease is a thought process we have when we are born. Humans are wired to keep our stress levels down. The approach is understandable, but it doesn’t help with our current world. A great deal of our innate ability is from before we lived our cushy, air-conditioned, removed-from-the-food-chain, lifestyles. Once we are used to the easy stuff, hard become undesirable. The problem with that is there are 8 billion humans on this planet. Anything desirable will be challenging. There is competition for basic necessities. The people who embrace ease will receive what ease supplies. That isn’t much. We have to sit down and ask “what it is we want in life.” If what we want it involves anything more than basic income, food, and shelter, we have a lot of work to do.
What are hard things? Hard things are tasks that make us uncomfortable. We may have heard that being uncomfortable is a sign of growth. It sounds good and deep. Luckily, it is fact. What we miss is the logic of the statement. If discomfort is a sign of growth, then comfort is a sign of stagnation. We rarely think about that. Many of us have grown comfortable being comfortable. We actively choose the easy task because we have programmed ourselves to be relaxed. The taxing task makes us feel odd. It can make us question ourselves, our abilities, and our outlook on life. It could be a rude awaking we are not ready to experience. A hard task is working towards a goal we set. An easy task is daydreaming about being done while experiencing how that accomplishment would feel. A hard assignment is reading a book from cover to cover while taking excellent notes in a notebook to reference the read in the future. An easy task is listening to the audio book version and retaining whatever it is we may reserve. One can conclude that the hard way is the right way. We can train ourselves to do hard things just as we conditioned ourselves to embrace ease.
How can I get better at doing hard things? Practice. The trick here is understanding that hard things stay hard. We get better at doing them. Training ourselves to do hard things molds us into stronger people. It will be uncomfortable, but we’ll know we are growing. It will cause us to question ourselves, but also discover the answers. We will begin to challenge ourselves when life begins to get comfortable. This used to be a time of inactivity. Now, it is a chance to grow with a self-imposed obstacle. It could be a workout challenge. It could be a 24-hour fast. It could be going on a month-long “necessity-only” purchase exercise. Whatever it is, make sure it is hard. This is a skill called uncomfortabilty. The ability to create an uncomfortable feeling or state of unrest. We will used it for the betterment of ourselves.
Why should we give ourselves hard tasks? We become more disciplined. Discipline can keep us calm when we are experiencing a hard task, we didn’t give ourselves. We also gain experience and insight about things others who don’t dare to do hard things miss. We may or may not be competitive people. Regardless, life is a competition. If our wants match the wants of others, there will be some of us who never obtain whatever “it” is. We should want every advantage we can gather in life because we need them.
In closing, embrace doing hard things or embrace living with what is left. You don’t want to exercise? Enjoy being out of shape. You refuse to read a book? Enjoy never being in the know. Do you refuse to go the long way? Enjoy being stumped when life gives you a test you could have only accumulated the answers to by doing hard things. Push yourself. Be the best you can be. In times of comfort, always throw in a small amount of discomfort. It is for the best.
Food for thought. You do the dishes!
