One of the most dangerous trends is the attempt to remove struggle from our effort. Don't even think of running a parallel narrative in your mind about how I'm describing younger generations. I'm not. If anything, I'm shining a bright light on adults 40 and older.
Everything imaginable attempts to eliminate friction, do the work for you, and rescue you from exerting even the slightest strain of effort. Do a quick inventory of the products, services, and apps that fill your life. Listen to the persuasive promises of the marketing and advertising you see.
This trend to eliminate struggle is crippling people, and by connection, families, teams, organizations, and institutions. You cannot separate struggle from our existence, regulate the discomfort of hard work in human development, or automate the formation of excellence and fulfillment.
Hard work and struggle are not options. They are fundamental requirements.
You are not fragile. You are capable.
You do not need relief from struggle. Instead, learn its worth and how to do it well.
Your life is not a thing to automate. Your life is a thing to forge through effort.
Struggle does not hold you back. Struggle creates you.
You need hard work — mentally, emotionally, and physically. Hard work with a purpose. Hard work toward a goal. Hard work for the sake of working hard because of what it forms in you.
True for my 5-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter as I go through the worthy struggle of a dad teaching them to work hard and struggle well.
Valid for you at your age too.
Answer the call. Do the work.
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