hardship

• there is value in being able to endure and overcome hardship
  • also self-discipline, being able to control yourself
  • or to “buckle down”, put your preferences to the side and do what’s necessary if required
  • if you accomplish something like that, it absolutely is something to be proud of
• however, there’s a never-ending generational conflict
• “back then we didn’t have anything and had to…, now the youth doesn’t want to work anymore”
• the thing is: while there’s value in overcoming hardship, there isn’t value in hardship itself
• even better than overcoming hardship is preventing hardship in the first place
• avoiding it where possible isn’t lazy / cowardly, it’s just smart
  • it’s different if you put that hardship on someone else
  • then that’s called capitalism 🌚
• so you work a 40 hour week and never complained
  • that’s cool and all
  • but that in itself doesn’t mean that wanting to work less is bad
• people tend to backlash emotionally if other people don’t have to endure hardships they endured themselves
  • envy
  • “if I had to do X, they should too”
• but this isn’t productive
• to improve the world, we should try to… well, improve it rather than keeping problems because “we dealt with those problems too and never complained!”

Summary

There is value in being able to endure hardship, but that doesn’t mean hardship itself is good or that avoiding hardship where possible is bad.