Choosing Your Hard Thing

It’s hard to do what’s right, and it’s hard to not do what’s right, too.

Choice, not control.

It’s true that we don’t have a lot of say in what happens in the world. We can’t control people or what they do; we can’t control the earth, or the flow of traffic, or who our parents are. We can’t control anything outside of our mental perspectives and daily decisions, really—and those, still, are heavily mediated by all the aforementioned out-of-our-control factors. 

That most of what happens is not up to us can feel threatening or liberating, depending on what perspective we take.

Though we don’t have control over what happens, we do have choices within the scope of our days and lives that certainly influence what we experience. We each have a sense of what’s right and wrong, a sense of what we want to do, what we would or wouldn’t prefer. We each have a sense of intuitive knowing that guides us through life—and we can either listen to that knowing and act on it…or not. Life can get really juicy when we surrender control but take responsibility for the choices that present themselves to us—and then make those choices based on what we feel is right. Here lies the choice, a slice of agency we ought to capitalize on.

The hard-but-right thing.

I’ve been troubling over a decision I’m increasingly aware that I need to make. At its core, the choice is between following what feels right or continuing to ignore what I know. The difficulty of this decision is mostly due to my discomfort of potentially disappointing someone else. 

Please tell me I’m not alone in this people-pleasing compulsion.

When I was younger, people-pleasing—or, rather, trying to behave in a way that theoretically made other people happier, often at the expense of my own happiness—was my default. I operated on the anxious wavelength of being overly accommodating and trying not to make anyone mad. What an exhausting and stressful way to live.

I’ve improved since then; I’ve grown up, grown a backbone, and done enough hard things (i.e., disappointed people, said no when they wanted yes, left behind places and jobs, etc.) to know that it’s really not worth it to go against what is right for you in the hopes of accommodating another. Trying to manipulate people’s feelings to make them feel good is always a crapshoot; making other people happy is another one of those things we actually are not in control of.

I’m now at a point where I literally cannot people-please to the extent I used to anymore: my whole system revolts against it. I feel ill, when I’m actively denying what I know is right or honest because I’m too afraid to have an uncomfortable conversation.

So now, I usually do the hard-but-right thing, even if it does upset other people. I can’t control what happens after, but I can choose to do what feels most true.

Choose your hard.

The writer and podcaster Glennon Doyle shares this simple heuristic for making hard decisions: “you get to choose your hard.” In other words, you have to choose which hard thing you’re willing to live with, then do it.

When you’re faced with a hard decision, the alternative to doing the hard thing is to not do that hard thing. That’s also hard: not doing what your gut says (or heart or soul or whatever you listen to) hurts, too. It often hurts more, because you’re letting yourself down.

Here is where you do have agency: you get to choose which hard thing you do. You may not know what happens after you choose, or whether it works out or not—you aren’t in control, remember—but you do get to choose whether you summon some bravery and do the thing you’re afraid of, or whether you sit in the disappointment of knowing you didn’t do it. 

Both decisions are hard. One is probably harder.

If we want to live an honest life, we can—we just have to prove it by choosing honesty, even if it’s hard. Every time we choose what is right for us, we strengthen the connection we have to our honest, intuitive selves. By saying no to the things that aren’t working for us, we widen the capacity of our lives to include more of what we want.

And isn’t that what we all want?

If you keep listening to what feels honest and right, it becomes increasingly difficult to deny what feels right. Subsequently, it becomes increasingly easier to make up your mind to do what feels right. The more you practice doing the hard-but-right thing, the more you can trust that you’ll be ok afterwards—and, in fact, you might be better off afterwards.

The hard decision I’m faced with really does seem out of my control: I can’t deny that it’s what is best, even if it makes me uncomfortable. And yet, the choice to act or not is mine.

If you’re in a position where you’re faced with a hard thing that may potentially disappoint someone, or with a decision that launches you into the void of unknown…you know what to do. Not everyone has the opportunity to do what they feel is right. Not everyone is lucky enough to have the choice of one hard thing over another. If you can actually do something about what you want, or what feels right—go do it, you’re lucky. Choose your hard-but-right thing. Choose to take the risk and be brave, or choose to live with the not doing. 

It’s up to you. 

Maggie