Doing hard things

Did you hear about the guy that deleted his Instagram because he saw a picture from the top of Mount Everest?

Gabriel Basso, on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, spoke about why he did this, saying:

"It pissed me off to know that the guy stepped over literal bodies to see that view, and now I was seeing it from my couch. It bothered me that I had that image in my head now without any effort"

This really struck me because it made me realise that we are so desensitised to having access to information and experiences without having to put in any effort.

Many years ago, it would be impossible to see a view from the top of Mount Everest without having to literally climb it yourself. It would be impossible to have certain experiences without putting in the work to actually be there. But over time, this "barrier of entry" has slowly been chipped away.

Now, this in itself isn't a bad thing, I'm not in any way trying to claim that modern photography is a net negative on society.

But, it's worth reflecting on how this new reality impacts our psychology. Nowadays, we get to reap rewards without having to sow. And there is a real negative effect that this has on us and our ability to reap. To do hard things.

The best way I can describe it is that it is now so much more difficult to struggle through a hard thing.

We've all had the experience of seeing a video on social media of something impressive and internally thinking "I can definitely do that", even though we most certainly cannot 🤣. This self delusion is actually the first issue, because when we do attempt to do the hard thing and it is inevitably hard, we're uncomfortable with the fact that there will be a struggle. We no longer expect it.

Weirdly, we think that doing a hard thing should either be easy for us from the start, or get easier pretty linearly and quickly over time.

But in reality, struggle isn't linear. You have to consistently put in effort, and yes it does get easier over time, but not linearly or as quickly as we expect.

Do hard things

The only solution to this problem is to flex that muscle of struggling and doing hard things as often as possible. We need to counter the idea in our heads that hard things should come easy because we get to reap rewards like seeing the view from the top of Mount Everest while sitting back on our couch.

Also, struggling does actually get easier the more you do it. I've been watching Noah Anderson's recent videos on social media, where he took an ice bath every morning for 75 days. One thing he said was, because taking that ice bath was the hardest thing he did each day, everything else felt so much easier to take on.

I've had a similar feeling too with my running journey. When I go on a long run first thing on a Monday morning, I feel like there is nothing I can't handle for the rest of the week.

So go do a hard thing today!