They (royally) say “Do hard things now to make your life easier in the long run.” Directionally, I agree with this, and I think we could provide a bit more context.
This seems to go hand-in-hand with the “eat clean-lift heavy things-work long hours while you still have the energy” hustle culture that I see all over my Twitter feed by 40-somethings who have “made it.”
There seems, however, to be a key aspect missing to this thought:
“Do things that OTHERS may perceive as hard, but you find easy, to make your life easier.”
As mentioned two weeks ago, I live on a relatively constrained diet and perform a 24 hours food fast once a week. But here’s the thing - I LOVE my diet. I feel amazing, I have a ton of energy, and I find it delicious. So for me, it’s actually easier to eat this way!
In contrast, for the first two years of my career, I worked in investment banking. I worked, in my mind, long hours on a very unpredictable schedule. Hard? Yes. Decent compensation? Sure! Did I learn something about myself? Yes.
But here’s the thing, I was really, really unhappy. And doing the hard thing now, if “now” went on for too long, would have ended in my transformation into a psychologically different human being, and not in a good way.
So instead, I searched for other “hard” employment opps - now working at a late stage crypto infrastructure company as the industry faces one of the largest examples of supposed fraud in history.
Still hard, with relatively long hours? You betcha. And don’t get me wrong, I still have tough days. But I find the work more stimulating, the work streams are more predictable, and it is interesting to peer behind the curtain of a still-nascent company and industry.
All this to say, maybe the hard part is not actually doing the hard things? Rather, finding the hard things that you find easy is the truly difficult task.
So go out there, try different, difficult things, and smile to yourself as people question you for the insane, “hard” things you stick with.
Have a spectacular weekend
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