Saw this on the interwebs today:

Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard.

Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard. Choose your hard.

Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard. 

Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard. Choose your hard.

Life will never be easy. It will always be hard.

But we can choose our hard. Picky wisely.

It’s so true. Sometimes it might seem like by choosing a particular path I am choosing the path of least resistance, the easiest way. But from the looks of it, there is no easier way, isn’t it? Either way, it’s going to be hard. Either way, shit’s gonna surface along the way, and what was superficially easy just became hard. Again. 

So one path is not better than the other, not easier, just more preferred. To you. Your preferred hard. Because that’s important. The dirty job that you don’t mind doing might be hard but it’s good honest work. 

Kinda like having to choose between Rails and Strapi/Node.js recently. Both are hard. They have their own set of pros and cons, and one path is not clearly better than the other. But the hard option my heart preferred in the end made all the difference to how I stood up to the challenge. If I weren’t completely authentic and honest with myself, I would usually cower and try to slink away at the first sign of difficulty. But when it’s my own choice, I can take one on the face without flinching. 

So choose your hard.