"We Can Do Hard Things"
On the strange satisfaction of getting your ass kicked
So I’m grinning my face off at the top of a mountain recently, gasping for air after the final scramble, legs like two pieces of iron, when a cliché pops into my head: we can do hard things. This bothered me for two reasons: one, because it felt like my mind had been directly infiltrated by weird internet jibber-jabber; and two, because I realized I didn’t actually understand why, biologically and psychologically speaking, we seem to enjoy doing hard things in the first place.
Three questions swirled around in my skull as I ran back down to my car:
Why does it feel good?
Does everyone have this drive, or is it specific to certain people?
And is it something that can be learned, or are some of people just wired for it?
When I posted a note about my initial thoughts related to this, one of my readers (shoutout to Kira Walker — go read everything she’s written at your earliest convenience!) commented that she was reminded of Michael Easter’s Th…
