Why I Can’t Ever Beat “Hardship”— Artificial Difficulty & The Futile Appeasement Of Inadequacy

My challenges were never enough, my thoughts & experiences perpetually invalid — and I’d never be capable of anything. After a lifetime of fear & disparagement, it’s time I come back to reality.

Flashforward

I have no idea where the past month went. October feels like yesterday, and it’s already the second half of November. It’ll probably be December when I’m finally done writing this.

I’ve been busy with software development volunteering. Pretty much non-stop for weeks. In the GitHub contribution grid thingy, there’s only a few days without code committed.

Not to play too much into braggarty workaholic culture, but I’ve recorded 44 hours of pure development in five days. Three are from yesterday, which makes around 10 hours on average for each of the other four days.

And my mood’s doing pretty good to boot.

I believe eight hours is the norm for a regular job, but I couldn’t fathom surviving that before. Particularly with my paused endeavors in writing fiction, even a few minutes was torture.

I was losing my mind as things just weren’t working. But the greatest concern was the implications of my abilities. If I couldn’t last even this short time, eight hours every day would be freakin’ impossible.

So I doom-searched for answers to prove otherwise. There was a study I read that concluded people are productive for only 3 hours a day. It matched many of my previous experiences.

Then another post about how meetings make up a lot of the day. I’d trust these anecdotes, but this was the internet. I couldn’t trust anything… that didn’t validate what I already believed.

I wanted to have faith a full workday wasn’t as daunting as it seemed, but perhaps my true, underlying beliefs were I was just incapable. And everything I read about laziness and failure affirmed that.

However, I’ve now accomplished that Herculean task. And then some.

I’ve worked a lot on a project before, but never for a streak this long. Usually, the fervor will fade out, before I crash and burn. After that, I hardly get anything done. I’m not this relaxed when I do either.

I’ve gotten the best sleep I’ve had in ages, despite late nights. No negative thoughts have overwhelmed me for a while — likely due to my disconnect with the news and social media. My brain’s been occupied as well.

Yet I haven’t done anything different, from what I can tell.

I knew I was staring at the website all day, but I only learned it was 10 hours after I tallied my spreadsheet. This isn’t something I strived for — but just the result.

I once thought of this feat as impossibly hard, and it was in many prior endeavors. But now that I’ve accomplished it, it feels effortless.

What does it mean when things are “easy?” More importantly, what does it mean when they’re “hard?”

Hardly Easy

Difficulty is a subjective metric, so it’s pointless to try and define it in an absolute sense. But I’ve observed an interesting aspect of how I’ve defined these terms subconsciously.

After that section of not-so-subtle humblebragging, this will really nail in the “conceited nerd” label I’m carving for myself. But it’s essential for contextualizing the ideas I want to convey, so here goes.

In elementary school, I hardly studied to get good grades. I never put in much effort. Sure, there were likely challenges I’m just not recalling. But relatively speaking, grade school was a piece of cake.

On the contrary, high school was utter hell for me.

Finally, back to dunking on myself. Now that, I’m comfortable with.

I actually needed to study then, but doing so felt futile. I wasn’t understanding anything as much as I was memorizing tricks specific to each problem.

The quadratic equation in particular drove me nuts. I directly plugged numbers in the formula but never got the correct result. Even referencing solutions in the back of the textbook, my answers still came out wrong. “Add this, take the square root, and it should b- HOW THE F — ”

I once got called on to say the answer to a problem. Apparently, my jumble of variables/coefficients was so wrong the teacher just looked at me with a “What’s wrong with you” expression, shook her head, and in the same tone just went — “-No.”

Yeah, not a good feeling.

Fast forward to freshman year — of college this time. I managed to graduate without any Cs in high school. Apparently, that wasn’t enough though, because I was missing a precalculus requirement to take a core course.

So there I was in precalc, when lo and behold, here comes that same terrifying equation, four years later, as part of an even more complex mathematical process.

The gates of hell had reopened, and I’d relive all the suffering from years past. Surely, this was a nightmare in the making.

But then I solved the problem without any issues.

After somehow surviving that Algebra class, the quadratic equation rarely appeared again. I hadn’t practiced or gained more knowledge of it. My problem-solving methodology felt no different.

Yet for some reason, I solved this monster from my past right when I saw it. All the emotional agony, from a topic I once deemed impossible to overcome.

It was over. And I had no idea what I did to make it so.

I kept progressing to higher-level courses. Topics like college-level statistics were way more complex, but I understood fine. Linear algebra just felt like a fun game of academic sudoku (which I can’t even solve). Even the stress of integration didn’t surpass the past.

That isn’t to say there weren’t courses I found hard and struggled in. I have no idea how I passed both my physics classes. My favorite equation is electric/magnetic flux, solely because it’s so straightforward (Q / ε₀).

There were often assignments where I had no idea what to do. And for days, I mentally screamed —

“WHAT DO I DO. WHY WON’T YOU JUST WORK.”

I often had to salvage what credit I could by explaining my thought process in writing. But sometimes, my endless search through material or a self-made realization produced a solution.

The equation or computer program came to life, with my efforts culminating in the correct answer at last. And with this Frankensteinian monster alive and kicking, I’d think to myself at last…

“…That’s it? Are you freakin’ kidding me?
That was all I had to do?”

I’d sit there in silence, looking done with life, before sighing in resignation. Rinse and repeat. Through countless iterations of this occurrence, I’ve realized this is my subliminally-defined notion of difficulty —

【Easy just means “*I* can do it.”】【And hard means, “This is impossible and freakin’ bogus how can anyone even do this sh-”】

Unfortunately, this creates a bit of a conundrum. Because by this definition, nothing I do can be hard. This manifests as perpetual inadequacy because “It’s not impressive if I can do it.”

The converse is that everything I can’t do is hard — which actually means it’s impossible. One’d think attempting to scale an insurmountable obstacle is futile. Yet all the notions I’ve encountered claimed otherwise.

I was convinced *hardness* was a necessity. I must suffer until I want to throw myself off a building, or else it’s not growth — I’m taking the easy route and stagnating. At least according to these quirky one-liners.

“Nothing worth doin’ is easy, bucko. No pain, no gain.”

I kept myself chained to ineffective or detrimental habits. I forced myself to endure discomfort for the sake of progress. Everything was ludicrously hard. Yet the only place I went was down.

This level of difficulty indicated my current angle wasn’t working. Something was wrong. Yet I ignored that cue to prove myself worthy to the deities of hardness, driving me insane and getting me nowhere.

Trying to write fiction this year was hard. Not because it was difficult, but because it was impossible. I had exactly zero ideas on how to progress, and so I just sat in front of a screen hating myself and squeezing out the (literal) three words left in the husk I’d become.

Again and again. And again. For months.

When I had concrete ideas, I rocketed through thousands of words easily. But once the path forward became obscured again, forcing myself became futile once more.

I’ve had a few new thoughts this month, so it’s becoming “easier” to see ahead once more, even if just a tinge. Though I decided to focus on other stuff— I won’t do game dev until I can enjoy it. Even if I have to wait years to regain that feeling, which honestly, I probably will.

The pitfall of my brute-force attempts is the nature of creative work. My Multimedia Systems professor highlighted this word I used during office hours — it’s fuzzy.

I just quoted myself. Sigh.
This article’s just a nonstop barrage of egotism, isn’t it.

There’s always a vague idea in mind, but execution’s always hazy. While programming involves creativity in terms of problem-solving and implementation, there’s usually a right mathematical or logical answer.

However, when it comes to endeavors like writing fiction or delving into unknown territory, correctness becomes more obscure. There’s no technical documentation on creating a cohesive plotline or figuring out the events of the specific story. Nor a tutorial on making a never-before-made application.

I’m sure in the long term, patterns emerge and it’ll become easier. As for now though, my progress is limited by exploration. My experiences and exposure to ideas.

Keys of knowledge unlocking new sections of the “map,” to give a terrible video game analogy.

That’s why despite my discontent with my prolonged impasse, the fact I’ve hardly moved the plot this year, and the likelihood of the next being the same, I still may be progressing optimally.

A solution that’s unknown isn’t workable. Just as I can’t succeed at an undefined goal, I can’t say I’ve failed either. For all I know, the frustration and roadblocks are the answer. Or at least, a part of it.

No matter how many days, months, or years I attempt to break down the gate, I can’t move forward without the key.

I’m unsure what that key looks like — nor where/when/how I can find it. But as it’s shown, the fruit will bear once I have. By experiencing more over time, I may reach a threshold where this towering obstacle will fall in a matter of weeks or days.

A mixture of emotions will wash over me. A sigh of relief firstmost. Then that “done” expression will creep in again, as the realization washes over me. The problem was this simple. This whole time, I could’ve finished years ago.

But it’s the visible climax that occurred within days. In reality, it was a buildup from years past.

I take “only” hours to write something. But this is spread out over days, sprinkled throughout weeks. Often, a fresh perspective from time away is needed to continue, make improvements, and stop hating myself.

In past months, I often stopped a writing session after only 2–3 paragraphs. It’d take days, even weeks until ideas clicked again. When my stream of consciousness halted, it was difficult and unenjoyable to continue. However, as I’ve found structure, the limit’s extended bit by bit.

My word choices and flow aren’t derived out of nowhere either. I write faster because I’ve become acclimated to patterns I’ve found, needing to think less to just do it.

And the very basis of these writings — the topics, come from my own experiences. My ideas exist as the result of years of development. So while it’s more impressive to say I churn thousands of words and ideas in a few hours of continuous, non-stop flow — that’s simply a fabrication.

Contrary to months prior, it’s easier to write more paragraphs in each session. Progress isn’t linear, so it’s not always the case. But as a general trend, I seem to find my “keys” with less… internal suffering. Hours pass before I know it. I started this very session after dinner — it’s near midnight now.

I don’t track how long it takes, but 20+ hours per sounds reasonable for the recent writeups. That may sound like a lot, but relatively speaking, it’s not.

At least when compared to this…

Because one could say it took 7 years to write within those hours.
And these thoughts are 2 decades in the making.

Keepers Of Reality

That’s the kicker I’ve had with hardship. Inadequacy has lurked in my shadows for years. No matter how far I progressed, I was unworthy of these highly technical and difficult endeavors.

Not everyone had it in them. Not anyone could just waltz in and understand the highly intricate details of a craft. Who was I to think I could even come close to understanding with my naivety? It wasn’t easy. It was hard and disciplined.

Or so I read online. As with most of my other worries.

This was the biggest question I harrowed over during my major — “Is school or the ‘real world’ harder?” And once again, I doom-searched to find the answer I already believed in.

My desired notion was the “real world” wasn’t as difficult. After all, school was strenuous enough. But my true underlying fear was that college really was useless, all my efforts were for naught, and I’d crumble outside the so-called bubble. If this was the easy part, then I might as well off myself.

In just two months, I’ll reach the 1-year mark of software engineering for this non-profit. My prior knowledge and experiences hasn’t been useless. Perhaps because it’s remote and unpaid, it’s not “real” experience.

But you know what… screw that.

I feel I’ve done a lot in this year, if I do say so myself. Just released a major UI update, greatly improving user experience and visual design. In these past months, I’ve also implemented many major features to increase throughput, increase the accuracy of data, and display all sorts of useful infor—

Alright me, you can quit the grandstanding now.
(How annoying...)

In 18 months since graduation, I’ve gotten pretty good at framing what I’ve done in the most obnoxiously grandiose way possible. All to prove I’m not a useless sack of dung. But the bragfest made me feel like a dunce, and it still does somewhat.

Now, I’ve kinda-sorta gained enough confidence to be “obnoxious” for now. It’s less about desperate attempts to convince, and more just a statement of what I did. I can often feel I’ve done a good job. And a supportive environment definitely contributed to that.

I can finally believe it when I say —

“I did that. And I did it well.

I can do that. And probably do it well.”

To give the mandatory disclaimer, I’m not an expert in everything. That’s impossible. But progress isn’t. Working through problems isn’t, even if it was made to feel so by so many other influences.

And so that brings me back to the big question I once wanted to prove for my ease of mind. Is school or the “real world” harder? The obvious answer is — it depends on personal definition of those terms and really doesn’t matter anyway.

But with nearly 1 year of “perhaps-real-world-but-who-cares-anyway” experiences under my belt, I’ve found an answer for me. The quotation marks probably gave it away.

School was definitely “harder” for me. There’s no question about it.

There’s no limit on seeking information with my “real” work. Whether from the internet, peers, or presently AI, there’s always a way to get moving again after hitting a wall.

Unlike in school, I solve “real” problems now. Ones that don’t just revolve around proofs or theory. Problems where my knowledge of calculating the result of a nondeterministic finite state machine was supposedly useless.

Theoretical knowledge of constraint satisfaction problems could never solve “real-world” issues like… making an interface more useable. Or doing math on data and showing the results.

Most real-world problems aren’t esoteric. That’s what I’ve realized.

I never think when I use a site or application— “I need a formally proven algorithm right now.” That may be how my issue’s solved, but not what is. The problems I’ve worked on are uniquely human problems, which are way simpler than any theory.

A button may be too difficult to distinguish. Not because Fitts’s Law dictates it, but because a user said so. Maybe the images are too dark. I applied a gamma correction algorithm I learned in school. But the solution was ultimately just — make it freakin’ brighter automatically, and optimally.

In the “real world,” there are real consequences. After all, you can’t screw up when designing a bridge, or it’ll collapse. That’s the extreme example I’ve heard, at least.

But I highly doubt anyone makes a bridge by themselves.

If the thing implodes on itself, I can hardly believe it’s one person’s fault. Surely, other people validated that design and oversaw the construction? Maybe some inspectors too.

Nothing I do is even that high stakes. Even if it was, to me that just sounds like a scapegoat for not having the proper measures. A failure of a system where one person could even create such a mess in the first place — where a single, inevitable human imperfection can bring it crashing down.

I’m sure there are cases where a single point of failure is unavoidable. But I’d wager most problems aren’t so, let alone everyday issues. If they are, I have no idea how the infrastructure of society is still standing. Relatively speaking.

That’s another notion I feel has disingenuously paralyzed me with fear — the demand for unattainable perfection, and this sole, pre-emptive blame and piling of responsibility on a personal level as if you’ve already failed. And not only that, but did so maliciously.

Again, I don’t believe in a right answer, or that even an answer exists. But just as college work hardly surpassed the agony of the quadratic equation despite being “more complex,” I’ve experienced the same with my “real” work.

For me, it’s nowhere as difficult as made out to be. Because it’s made out to be impossible.

Manufactured Mohs Scale

Things are hard because they’re made so. Not always, but a lot of the time. That’s what I’ve experienced, at least. And a textbook example of this phenomenon was college.

As aforementioned, there were strict constraints. No collaboration, no outside resources, and specific, complex, theoretical problems. This is the only time where I’d say manufactured difficulty was in good faith.

In comparison to that, the “real” problems I’ve encountered are a cakewalk. My current environment doesn’t impose any unnecessary impediments, though I’m sure that’s not the case everywhere.

But that’s precisely why no matter how complex this work gets, it likely won’t ever surpass the stress I felt in school.

At most, the pressure may equal that of academia.
But I’ve been braced for it.

The benefits I gained from hardship came not from its existence, but from its erasure. When I overcame it, I emerged with an increased tolerance and ability to navigate issues. It stopped being hard, but easy. At least relatively speaking, based on my own definitions of those terms.

However, the disregard for one’s experiences I’ve felt through the notion of a “real world” serves to impose hardship perpetually. Mental games seeking to demotivate and pummel one into the ground. To take all and leave none.

It never relents, and snowballs inadequacy in a neverending barrage of degradation. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. To die and rot in worthlessness — that’s the only choice this imposed hardship seeks to provide. And one’s expected to be thankful for that “enlightenment.”

I again reiterate how I struggled with many problems, only to find a solution and go — “That’s all I had to freakin’ do?” It was so simple in hindsight.

Complex problems I’ve encountered are often a bunch of simple problems tangled together. If not that, then there’s always been a key to work through them, until reaching that eureka, “a-ha” moment. But all the belittlement obscures that fact.

I’ve never achieved understanding — I’ve discovered it. Finding it is what was “hard.”

I comprehend many topics I deemed impossible to grasp before. This September, I started cooking more often. Before, fire was scary, and I had no idea how to tell when certain foods were properly done. I’d surely burn my house down or poison everyone with my ineptitude.

But after trying it, I now know how to tell. Specifically, when cooking meat, you can use internal temperature as a metric. When the temp reaches a certain number, it’s done. No guesswork required.

Baking seemed rough. Yet after printing some recipes off the web, I can’t believe how simple some foods are. Chop some stuff, toss it in a bowl, mix it, preheat the oven, and throw it in. Fresh garlic bread and cookies galore, with no artificial/preprocessed aftertastes.

I fretted over the specifics. I thought I had to get measurements right down to each grain of salt. But after many iterations, I realized a pinch too much flour wouldn’t make the cookies explode.

Suddenly, cooking just felt like microwaving with extra steps.

In the context of software engineering, I enjoyed learning the simple elegance of how some things worked in college. Take, for instance, a checkers-playing AI. Not the GPT stuff — algorithms from decades ago.

When I was a kid, I saw how a bot made moves on its own. I had no idea how it worked, let alone how one could make it play “easier” or “harder” against the player.

But now I know. And it’s neat.

In an adversarial games algorithm, the gist is that optimal moves are made using a decision tree. The bot can see all possible outcomes up until a few turns into the future, and choose an action to get closer to the outcome with the highest end “score”.

The difficulty of the AI’s playstyle is actually just how many moves ahead the calculations are limited to. When put like that, it sounds so straightforward. Moments like this completely demystified the idea of “artificial intelligence” for me — it was still based on computational logic, hardly different from any other algorithm.

With natural language processing, I wondered how a computer can find intent and meaning from a search — that words like “went” and “go” mean the same thing.

The answer to that was using processes like lemmatization, which reduces words to their root form, and a lexicon, which basically maps out all the relationships between words, definitions, etc.

It’s wild to imagine such a thing, considering there’s over 170,000 words in English alone.

But the solution sounds so elegant/simple when put like this.
Again, it wasn’t magic — there was logic to it.

Existing knowledge and tools served to solve problems and make things easier. Yet somehow, the reverse notion was ingrained in me — tools were instead these unobtainable relics of insight.

That’s why with every item I check off the list of “stuff I didn’t know but now do,” I only become more… done. This was why I felt worthless and incapable? This was the forbidden knowledge I’d never grasp?

This was what I lost my mind and bashed my skull in self-harm over? This was what drove the deepest, most violent desire to kill myself I’ve had in an entire decade of inclement mental health?

Freakin’ this?

To think one could possess fundamental knowledge, but is apparently too inept to grasp one can type “class=’m-3'” with a framework to increase the space between two elements on a web page?

One could implement all these algorithms from scratch, theoretical as they may be, but is deemed intellectually incapable of using a tool that does it all for you? That was why my personal/academic experiences were a sham?

There’s obviously a bit more to it than that, but hardly so. I’ve become beyond baffled by this realization. It’s not even anger, but pure disbelief at the absurdity of the notions that pushed me past the brink only months ago.

This was the forbidden knowledge that separated my experiences from “reality?”

A majority of new stuff I’ve learned either had common ground with my prior knowledge or made utilizing those concepts easier. Nothing I’ve done so far has surpassed the difficulty of the theoretical proofs I did by hand.

Perhaps most frustrating of all — it only took a few weeks at most to “learn.” In some cases, I gained knowledge to solve a problem instantly with a search.

Much knowledge I gained during my school days doesn’t apply to my current work — in the best way possible. Because the constraints are released, nothing holds me back from giving all I have. And the weights are off on my sanity. A stark contrast to what I believed for years.

To Not Be

For so many years, comparison has wreaked havoc on my life. It hasn’t stopped in the present, either. And it likely won’t in the future. There’s always someone I should be more like. Something more I should know — or a less wrong way I should do things.

If only I did anything else except what I did.
Were anything else, except useless old me.

You can imagine my surprise during times I was told “Good job.” When I knew something that someone else didn’t — or did something someone else couldn’t.

Suddenly, I’d become the one being pedestalized. It felt nice, but it also felt bizzare, if not wrong. What did I do to deserve this praise? What did I do that was so special? It doesn’t feel like I went above and beyond.

And that’s yet another thing I’ve realized. There are always different levels of capability, much of which are subjective. But I’ve found the one consistent aspect between them is that they just… are.

I think I can move pretty fast once muscle memory kicks in. But I really feel I’m just moving at the rate I’m comfortable with. Whether it’s opening some containers or putting some plates away.

On the contrary, the one time I tried to “~go fast~…” with all the whooshing and zipping and whamming I was saying in my head… I slammed a bowl into the counter’s edge and chipped it.

Yeah, I stopped caring about speed at that point. And life. Just silently, energylessly transferring last night’s dinnerware at a snail’s pace, done with everything.

(-_-)゛ “(…that’s what you get you freakin’ *idiot*)”

I always wanted to be funny as a kid. And on a few attempts, I’ve said something so stupid, something that I didn’t realize was over-the-top or even offensive to someone. You know, those embarrassing moments that keep you up at night and make you want to scream. I’ve had a few of those.

But there was also this time in high school. I was meeting classmates to film a documentary for a group project. We were taking a train to the city to interview someone.

The meeting place was in a shopping center. After being dropped off, I sat down on this concrete thing. Soon after, I opened the group chat and texted where I was waiting.

I guess without realizing it, I was oddly specific with describing my whereabouts. I got to where the two earliest members were, and after a bit of waiting, one of them checked the group chat and saw my message. After reading it aloud, she chuckled and went…

“~Oh Justin, you’re so funny...”

And in my thoughts, I was like…

( •‎‎ ‎ _ ‎ ‎• ) ‎‎‎ ‎ ‎ ‎whadid i do

When I first wanted to delve into writing this, I believed nothing I did felt hard. Months later, maybe I can admit I’ve done a few things “challenging” enough to use that word. But as I’ve discussed on many occasions, actually doing the thing was less agonizing than what any words imposed on me.

I once got positive feedback on an essay I wrote. And so perhaps one could say I “compiled thoughts in a well-organized manner and critically analyzed the themes of the writing, utilizing lighthearted humor to transform the heavy messages into a more digestible form for readers.”

But all I feel I did was write what I was thinking, in the way I thought was best. And funnily enough, the humor I used in that essay is something I now utterly cringe at, even if my more knowledgeable professor liked it.

This year, I’ve “translated multiple user requirements into workable software implementations using critical thinking and problem-solving.” Or as I like to call it, typing stuff to make the computer do stuff.

There’s always an over-complexified, buzzword-bingo way to describe things, and there’s an oversimplified way. I’ve found my truth is somewhere between them.

But way, way closer to the oversimplified one.

Everything about me I’ve been told was impressive rarely felt so. I never felt I tried to “have good ideas” or a “quick turnaround.” Nor have I ever tried to be a “problem solver” or an “effective thinker.” I just thought what I thought, and did what I did.

I can’t say if I’m any of these things — partially because I don’t know what half of them mean anyway. But if I so happen to possess any of those qualities, I can say for certain, it’s not because I actively try to — but just a result of what I am in the present.

Gosh, saying it like that sounds so arrogant.

“~That’s just how I am, I’m just like intrinsically amaz-~”

And so is this paradox I’ve discovered. One must try to change. But by trying, one tries to become what they’re not. What one seeks to become is not what one tries to be, because one who is needs not try — but simply does.

To try is a hard effort, but when one is, effort and difficulty fade. And so in a way, one who does never tries, but just is without doing so anyway.

But if I must try to do, yet one who does needs not try, then how can I ever try to become what one is?

The answer I’ve found is to not try. Or rather, not “try” in the way the word implies. “Trying” has been to discard every aspect of myself, to never believe in one’s intuition, and to conform to a model dictated by external notions in this entire story arc of “grit” and “struggle.”

Whenever I “tried” to do what these notions claimed I had to, I found myself further from achieving what I was “trying” for. It was the definitive way to validate all inadequacies imposed by those ideas, by forcing myself to go against my intuition.

I had to follow to become “real,” despite how I felt. But as the impersonal methods got me nowhere, they only decimated my sanity. It wasn’t just hard — it cognitively murdered me.

On the contrary, plain-old trying has simply been to do. Or rather, by simply navigating through what’s ahead with what one naturally knows in the present, and possessing the desire to do so, I believe one is always trying well.

I don’t buy the idea of “leaving your comfort zone” anymore. At least, not in the sense of venturing out into the open wild in a neverending battle of the elements.

The idea if you don’t, you’re clearly going nowhere. It has to be hard.

As discussed in a prior writing, I see progress as more of what’s brought into my comfort zone. With this new addition to home base, there’s a sense of familiarity, but it feels different. Enough so that it’s a bit uncomfortable at first.

But gradually, that feeling of unease went away, until I became acclimated to it. And that became the new normal — part of this new level of comfort.

It’s said when doing a workout, you need to have a rest day. Not that I’d know, but I read it somewhere. Microtears in the muscles are formed, and strengthening comes from those tears healing.

So I really can’t believe this constant pummeling of one’s self-esteem and sanity is supposed to foster growth. To just run out into the wilderness, gutterally yelling war cries in a neverending fight against rabid dogs… or whatever the hell you’re supposed to do.

It’s only caused me to succumb to my injuries. To years of compounded mental toll.

Discomfort drives change, but to enter a situation, one can infer I’ve become comfortable enough to try. It wasn’t because of pure strength and will, but because I became more comfortable with time and further experience.

At some point, the idea became manageable enough for me to tackle. Or perhaps my current circumstances became dire enough that the risks paled in comparison.

In either case, I eventually became ready to face the monster ahead. And I did so of my own volition. But any discomfort beyond that only hindered me.

Past there, it’s the downhill portion of the helpfulness curve, if not just a cliff. Push any further past there, and splat into the ground one goes.

My Reality

Of all the ideas ingrained in me that I’ve explored this year, the mandate of hardship truly takes the cake with its insidiousness. Quite frankly, it has proverbially (or even literally) defecated on most of my life so far.

I’ve discussed my notions of hardship from a knowledge/learning standpoint. But the inadequacy permeated further than just that. It infiltrated my thoughts and very identity.

Every aspect of my life so far was controlled by this notion. The good in my life was used against me —merely a sign of my privileged detachment from reality. Everything terrible was a tool to harden me. Any aversion to it was just a lack of strength and will.

I was never worthy of anything. My reactions were never valid —my feelings were to be discarded regardless of my intuition.

One simply had to shut up, listen to what was actually right, and adhere to it.

For years, I mentally groveled and conceded. But no matter what, these feelings didn’t go away. The goal was perpetually unreachable, and even if I “cheated” to reach it in this impossible game, the posts only moved further. Maybe I faced one hardship in life, but it was meaningless because I had yet to encounter the real struggle.

I’ve now accepted these ideas never served to help me. Not that I didn’t have plenty of doubts before, but the coercive fear of delusion forced me to discard them, as with every other part of me.

With these notions of real and imaginary experiences — intrinsic ability/inability and worthiness/unworthiness, I think I can finally translate what the narrative of “hardship” and “reality” wants from me — what it truly says.

“Go kill yourself — you defective, microbic scum.”

That’s the message I’m getting. There is no hope — “for you.” There is no future — “for you.” So crawl into the hole, die, and be grateful for the opportunity. I am always broken and inadequate, no matter what I do. Because the only path to this “adequacy” is one where “I” is erased entirely.

I wished for my own abuse because of this. I wanted to experience these “real” horrors of life, do “real” work, and have “real” struggles. Someone, just verbally berate or threaten me — make me truly hate life.

Just hurry up and hurl this torture at me, these hardships that were said to happen in this true world, so finally my life can be worthy of existing in this dystopic reality. That’s all I wanted.

Hell, even realizing everything I have, I’m still wishing for this.
All in hopes of validating what makes me.

I’ve waited for these harsh realities to hit me — even begged for it mentally. But the big reveal of this world may never happen. It doesn’t have to — and perhaps can’t anyway.

Because I’ve already seen it. I just never considered my hardships as fitting the bill.

Every life event was denigrated as fantasies occurring in this fairy tale land. I couldn’t believe in my intuition —it was delusional egotism to think I knew anything. And that disallowed me from feeling down, or any form of discontent.

I‘ve heard of these things I’m just naively unaware of. In reality, I have yet to experience hating my peers and boss and being demeaned and coerced by them.

“It’s not all kumbaya.” Like how I’d lived, supposedly.

But I think back to the time when I was the target of an unfair, petty, public berating from my professor. I was always oversensitive to conflict, especially with being accused of wrongdoing. If someone said I was horrible, I believed it, because I wanted to be “good.”

There was a lot I experienced with that moment.

I experienced witnessing what I thought was a “chill, funny” professor do a full 180. I had a “reality check” that I can never truly know anyone. I experienced being the target of a shaming in front of 20 other freakin’ people.

I experienced unequal treatment, because plenty of other people hadn’t procured the reading at all for weeks. Yet who did he target in front of the entire class? Me, who had the reading, but just in a digital form.

I experienced all this over such trivial matters — over a few passing sentences in a classwork conversation. For a requirement for physicality that was never even stated — but only mentioned in passing retroactively, in what I was made to believe was a jesting tone.

I experienced conflict and trouble created over trivial matters — because I still did the work just fine. But apparently, not in the right way. Reading pixels instead of pages was a deviance so egregious to warrant this whole demeaning show.

And I experienced having to go to a 1 on 1 meeting with him only days later, and witness him act as though nothing had happened at all. Making me go insane as I questioned whether I was just a horrible, insolent student who deserved everything I got.

If that ordeal wasn’t “unfair” or “aggravating” enough to be worthy of reality, then what about the beginning of high school?

I entered in the second semester of the year. And in the first class, everyone referred to me as “new kid.” Like straight out of a freakin’ movie. I had no idea this happened in real life — “*tap tap* Hey, new kid.”

This one girl blew a bunch of eraser shavings from her desk onto mine. And we were freakin’ facing each other. Just right into my face — “PWOOOOO. PWOOOO.”

All the little judgy remarks. Some group of boys taking up space around me, “Why are you sitting in my seeeaaaaat?” Eventually, I just found another spot for lunch. Another girl holding papers on the back of her head instead of just handing it to me — “~Hello? Helloooo???? UGH~ *slam*”

This guy I never saw before, who was like 8 foot 7, shoved me aside as I was trying to walk around him — another “H.S. movie moment.” All I did, and perhaps could do, was keep walking — not even a look back. And I was a senior then — probably older than this cookie-cutter sports d-… bro.

And not to mention those few faculty members who give you those interrogations — assuming the worst of you, and treating you as such in those condescending tones of voice.

I’m being hella vindictive here, but I might as well let loose now. And probably regret my boldness later. Oh well.

Thankfully, this one class in senior year was pretty great, and I ended high school on a somewhat decent note. Great teacher, great peers, and all that. I guess it helped that everyone was 4 years older too.

But overall, high school was a prison. I even witnessed a “prison fight” start right in front of me. Started punching the hell out of each other, adults tackling them down, waving everyone else away — “Go! Go! (to your cells)”

High school marked the beginning of a severe decline in my life. One that I’ve just (hopefully) reached the bottom of, and can now start digging out of with the teaspoon I’m equipped with.

And let’s not even mention the horrific feelings social media have evoked in me for the last decade. Topics sparking inadequacy, sensational provocations, and everything in between. It feels like I’m an alcoholic with a severe addiction.

Is this enough “demeaning” and “wanting to die” to be worthy of reality?

I remember when I was a 5th grader, 13 years ago. It was the most carefree era of my life. Many may say at this age, one never has any significant problems or struggles.

And for age 10, I can concede it’s a valid assumption — to an extent.

One year prior, there was talk amongst us students about the next year. The teacher we’d be assigned was a topic of interest. And there was one teacher in particular whose image was quite… terrifying. I’ll denote his name as Mr. T— shorthand for “teacher.”

There were rumors he was big, mean, and scary. And he had a booming voice. When we did the morning announcements, he didn’t even need a megaphone. If us kids wouldn’t settle down, he’d just use his vocal power.

“QUIET! *echo echo echo…*”

So as 4th grade came to an end, and we were about to enter our final year of elementary school, I prayed that I wouldn’t get assigned to his class.

But with my amazing luck, that’s exactly what happened.

He was one of the best teachers I had. Well, all my grade school teachers were great. I never experienced the meanness or terror that the rumors talked of. Nor did I hear a single raised voice in the classroom.

But then one day at the start of spring — our final semester, our entire class was called to the auditorium. I had no idea why. There weren’t any performances or events scheduled.

They sat us down on the stage steps. And after a long wait, the principal came in and stood in front of us, with a serious yet somber expression on his face. The air was unnerving.

He first said a few sentences of prelude that I can’t remember. But I most certainly remember the last. And he gave the news to us as gently as he could.

“…Mr. T got into a car accident, and has died.”

Not just him. He and his wife. On their vacation of all times. And that’s when throughout the class, the tissues were passed as the tears began to fall.

I had to witness something like this again, not too long ago. The last hours of someone’s life. Tears from those I’d never seen cry in 20+ years of knowing them. Amid what should’ve been a relaxing, joyous holiday.

And to hear about the situation in the country. Hospitals completely overwhelmed, unable to find people’s bodies in the stacks of the deceased. The true identity of the cremated ashes forever remaining unknown.

The reality of these situations were clear without saying. As were the lessons and realizations that came with them.

Taking It Easy

At the time of writing this sentence, there’s a high chance I have COVID-19 as well. Close contact and no air circulation since it’s winter. My throat’s already feeling sore, and I’m feeling that warm, mushy, “sick” feeling.

I managed to avoid it for nearly 4 years, I guess. If it is the virus, then the next week or so is going to suck hard. Thankfully, after almost an entire month, I’m just about ready to wrap this reflection up.

I suppose I can finally admit I’ve experienced hardship. Not the hardest of them all, but quite darn taxing. Inadequacy, hopelessness, loss, depression. Demeanment, betrayal, vulgarity. Guilt, shame, self-hatred. And plenty of stuff in between.

There’s a lot I never considered to see as such. Because I always believed nothing I experienced could possibly be “real.”

I won’t make some cheesy, grand statement on what life is. But my life has always had problems. For every positive, a negative hit with 100-fold strength. Everything that made me content soon became unenjoyable and agonizing. And the negatives pervaded in a neverending cycle.

Some problems were personal — existing within myself. Living with mistakes I’ve made, finding purpose, and navigating a labyrinth of mental health issues.

Others were largely out of my control. Universal events like the pandemic, the loneliness crisis, and the dark side of technology. The moments that are making history, but never feel so because my issues are never significant enough to be “history-worthy.”

Even with all the good I’ve got, my life has had problems. Some terrible events have occurred regardless, and there’s still much I long for. So I’m inclined to believe no matter how well current circumstances are, life will always find a way to muck things up. It’s what I’ve experienced so far, at least.

And so that’s why with all the problems life hurls around, I’d say there’s enough stress and frustration without needing to artificially create more—or as I’d like to bluntly call them — “bullsh*t problems.”

Those like the demand to address useless drivel. The need to prove oneself to some supposed superiority. The need to obtain status and validation —that one’s thoughts and experiences are worthy of reality. That’s something I now know myself.

Whether life is “easy” or “hard” is a question that I can’t answer.

But I’m damn sure it doesn’t have to be.

Many things were hard. Before, it was hard to let go of the past. Memories would replay in my head, triggering harrowing emotions, discontent, and sometimes shame.

Now, it’s become easier. For what reason, I can’t say for sure. But if I were to guess, it’s because I’ve experienced more since then. I’ve gained evidence that the past doesn’t have to drag down the future.

Before, it was hard to communicate directly. Years of isolation snowballed my fears, making me analyze every word and sentence to a ridiculous level. I feared for the moment I’d catastrophically embarrass myself.

Now, it’s become easier. Because again, I’ve gained evidence. That those I work with are not seeking to destroy me, and in fact, experience some of the same worries I do.

Before, it was hard to believe in myself. Everything I did was unimpressive and wrong. My ideas were asinine, and my emotions were invalid. There was no hope for someone like me in the world.

Now, it’s become easier. Because I’ve experienced more this year. I’ve discovered what it’s like to feel appreciated and supported instead of demoralized. And I’ve seen the impact my ideas can create, even on a small scale.

I’ve discovered a demand to prostrate oneself is not humility. That it’s not ego to believe in one’s ideas, abilities, and self. To be humble does not require one to grovel, and endlessly proclaim how cluelessly unknowing one is. I now know that’s only subjugation.

Because I experienced what happens when problems are used to encourage you to move forward, rather than beat you to death.

Before, it was hard to trust my thoughts, intuition, and experiences. Surely, if something were said about me, it must be true. I could never be trusted to do the right thing.

Now, it’s become easier. I’ve discovered enough to realize my beliefs are not meritless. And that any notion that tries to tell me what I am, what I should feel, what I intend, and what my experiences are —and discard everything I think and have gone through — they’re simply a load of crap.

I suppose this is the hazing ritual I’ve heard many experience in life. And well, it seems like I’m through with it too. After nearly two decades of this deleterious notion being reinforced, taking advantage of my naivety to instill nothing but dread, I’ve gained enough insight to put my hand up and say—enough’s enough.

There’s no blame to pass, and I find pointing fingers pointless anyway. This is the result of many cumulated experiences. Little remarks about “real” and “good enough,” sprinkled through conversations throughout childhood. Warped perceptions in social media, with every setback validating what I felt about myself — that I was fundamentally broken.

Ultimately, it’s on me. The responsibility that “reality” so beholds. So this is me taking responsibility, for my own confidence and peace of mind. This is me no longer believing in fantasies.

Because in my reality, there’s enough hardship as is. But there’s a way forward. It’s one where one’s struggles are acknowledged, not delusionally cast aside.

It’s one with the means to discover one’s “keys” to overcome their challenges, no matter how insurmountable they appear. After years of turmoil, I’ve discovered another key.

And it’s unlocked what may be the most important piece of insight in my entire life.

By doing away with this fairy tale, I’m allowing my tears to re-heal. The mental injury of a cumulated lifetime, finally freed of its neverending abuse.

At last, I can reap the benefits. I emerge stronger and more resilient. There will always be downturns, but at least I won’t feel put down as hard by this crap again.

I can finally think to myself — maybe where I am now isn’t a complete failure. Perhaps the experiences I’ve had are more significant — that I know more and am more capable than I was made to believe.

But in no way does that mean I’m complacent.

Instead, I can focus my energy on solving actual problems.

It’s now indeed December, and considering I’m about to reach the peak of COVID-19 symptoms, this is probably my last major write-up for this year. 2024 — isn’t that a wild number to hear?

There’s some superstition with it. “4” is an unlucky number — at least, based on the culture I’ve grown with. It sounds like “死” — death. I also have negative associations, because I started high school in 2014. Well, I thought I did, but I guess it was actually early 2015 when I went in person.

Either way, “4” is not a comforting number for me. But maybe the next year will be marred with death — in a good way.

Perhaps the next year will mark the death of an old era. The death of notions that never served to help me. 2024 may be the death of perpetual inadequacy, and the birth of newfound confidence.

After so long, I’ve rediscovered the possibility of a brighter future.

And I won’t have it robbed from me again.

I’ve encountered many difficulties in my life. However, I became better equipped to deal with those problems in the future. The obstacles became larger, but so did my ability to face them.

There were many harrowing ordeals, some of which I still haven’t fully recovered from, and perhaps never will. But with time and acknowledgment, the pain has lessened. And I’ve come to understand them more.

Unknowing became knowing. Lostness became discovery. Pain became healing. And so hard, became easier.

Not universally easy. But more than it past was. Progress, and steps forward in the making. But in no way diminishing the impact of what happened. Regardless of how insignificant it felt to turn, it didn’t change the reality of what was.

This is my longest writing so far. It’s proof of how significantly this notion impacted me. I said when I last wrote on this topic, I could probably go on for another 60 minutes on my grievances with how this has screwed me.

Well, that’s thirty-four down.

I want to conclude with a cautiously hopeful outlook toward what’s to come. It’s something I feel is needed in counter to the desolation these ideas evoked for so long. For all I know, the next key is only one discovery away.

So let’s see what hope the future holds.

Let’s see what can happen, and how far I can go, when I can take things easy.