The night before departing on a five-day, 85-mile run around Torres del Paine National Park, I lie on a hotel twin bed journaling about the possible mishaps lurking in the days ahead. Patagonia’s weather is notoriously fickle, the trails are rumored to be rocky and technical, and there aren’t many bail-out options if something goes wrong. Despite an early alarm, my sleepless brain was moving at terminal velocity.
An hour earlier at dinner we’d ordered an extra round of pisco sours—Chile’s traditional cocktail—and I was feeling sassy, spray-painting ink from my ballpoint pen onto the page. There wasn’t a clear purpose or endgame other than the catharsis of scribbling. I had earbuds in, apathetically listening to the Tribe of Mentors audiobook, when this quote slapped me across the face:
“It’s easy to convince yourself that things need to be hard, that if you’re not redlining, you’re not trying hard enough. This leads us to look for paths of most resistance, often creating unnecessary hardship.”
Guilty as charged. I love challenges and generally prefer to work for something over having it handed to me. From the NYT Sunday Crossword to moto trips across Africa, I enjoy the process as much as the end result. In that moment, sitting cross-legged and lit by a headlamp, I was mentally gearing up for another self-indulged sufferfest. I crossed out my last sentence and wrote, “Why does it have to be hard?”
After a pause, my pen started to fly again. What if the next five days were easy? If the weather was mild, my nagging Achilles tendonitis never flared, and the execution was smooth? Would it feel as valuable or exciting? Heaven forbid, would it no longer merit publication if it wasn’t rough and punishing enough? Many people, myself included, believe success comes from overcoming adversity, but what if we’re just making life unnecessarily harder for hard’s sake?
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