Do What is Hard. Be Strong.
By and large, this generation of young people is widely considered to be the softest generation the West has ever produced. And there’s a good reason for that. As a people, we have been gaslit into believing that a frictionless life of comfort and ease is of paramount importance and that a life of maximal leisure is the very definition of a life well lived. There is consequently a pathological avoidance of hard things. We shelter our children from all pain and adversity no matter what this may mean for their long-term maturation. We ruthlessly eliminate hardship and stress from our own lives in pursuit of the American Dream – the ultimate goal of which is a long retirement that ends with a leisurely stroll into the hereafter. A stressful job, a difficult marriage, failure on any level, and strenuous physical activity are things to be avoided – cancers to be excised. We seek after the placid and the comfortable, not knowing that a life lived in pursuit of the easy ends in a harder and more difficult existence than a life lived in the opposite direction. I have had the good fortune to have lived both lives – one where I did hard, but worthwhile things and one where I spent my days doing easy, but ultimately empty things. Looking back, I can tell you without hesitation that the former is the definition of a life well lived and the latter is the definition of a life wasted.
I worked as a Deputy District Attorney for almost five years, and I can state without hesitation that that was one of the most difficult jobs I have ever had. And I once worked for a week as a machinist in a factory for a sheet metal fabricating company. Trial work in and of itself is incredibly taxing and immensely stressful even in the most benign of circumstances. But, when the outcome is determinative of very real issues regarding public safety, and when your efforts will largely determine whether or not victims and their families receive justice for the crimes committed against them, the stakes could not be higher, and the corresponding stress could not be more punishing. It turns out that I was not built for that type of stress. Or, at least, that’s what I told myself. I quit that job. I then took a job as a court appointed attorney for indigent parents and legal guardians in juvenile dependency cases.
A brief primer on the juvenile dependency system may be in order here. When Child Protective Services (CPS) receives a referral alleging acts of child abuse or neglect, a social worker is dispatched to investigate those allegations. If the social worker, at the end of his or her initial investigation, finds evidence to support the allegations of child abuse or neglect he or she has the power to remove the child from the custody of the parents. If the social worker exercises that authority and does in fact remove the child from the home, or maintains the child in the home but believes the case serious enough to warrant judicial supervision, the social worker will generate a case in juvenile dependency. All parties involved in juvenile dependency cases – parents, children, CPS – are entitled to legal representation. Parents have the option of hiring their own attorney or asking for a court appointed attorney if they lack the financial resources to secure legal representation on their own. More often than not, the parents cannot afford to hire their own attorney and so they ask the court to appoint one for them.
I worked as one of those court appointed attorneys. The majority of my cases involved clients who abused controlled substances. A minority of my cases involved domestic violence, mental illness or actual cases of child abuse, both physical and even sexual. So, you can imagine the quality of individual I was tasked to represent. Needless to say, I did not care as much about the outcome of those cases (vis-a-vis my work at the District Attorney’s Office) given the circumstances. The truth is that the vast majority of my clients were not equipped to be parents in the first place and they were often painlessly aware of that fact. Most of the children were nuisances to my clients – the result of a drunken or drug induced union where a pregnancy was the last thing either participant wanted or, in their alcohol or drug induced stupor, expected.
My job day-to-day was to guide the parents through the legal proceedings and advise them as to how to proceed and represent them in trials if they chose to exercise their legal right to one. But, the evidentiary standards in juvenile dependency cases are so low compared to the criminal justice system that trials never amounted to more than arguments based on documentary evidence provided to the court. Rarely was eyewitness testimony necessary or efficacious. Needless to say, this was a very easy job compared to what I had done previously in my legal profession. Moreover, because I was technically a subcontractor, I was self-employed and therefore I could do with my time what I wanted. I was paid well in a comparatively stress-free job.
But ironically, what I discovered was that job was more stressful for me than any job I had ever had before or since. What they don’t tell you about ease and plenty is that both come with a heavy dose of existential dread. Typically, the hard jobs are either worth doing, or they don’t really give you the time or the inclination to think about whether or not they are. Doing what is hard rarely comes with the stress of existential angst and that stress is far and away the most debilitating. When I was a deputy district attorney, I never questioned my place in the world. I hated the job, but I knew it was worth doing and that it was contributing to the greater good. I could not say that about the job that followed. I had a lot more leisure time, I made a lot more money on an hourly basis and the stakes were not nearly as high. As a matter of fact, most of my clients could not have cared less whether or not they ever got their children back into their custody. Many in fact did not even show up to court proceedings half the time. But what nobody tells you about jobs like that is they do make you question your place in the world. I did worry at night about my contribution to the greater good. My days were relatively stress free, but my nights were haunted by the realization that what I did for a living did not ultimately matter. That is stress on a different pitch.
From that job I quit to enter into vocational ministry and the lessons from that foray into semi-retirement I carry with me still. Pastoral ministry is the most difficult job imaginable. The day-to-day stress and burden of caring for the souls of others wears on a person like nothing else and the stakes could not be any higher. What you do impacts eternity and one day you will stand before the Maker of Heaven and Earth and give an account for how you treated His bride and that realization ups the stress and intensity to an 11. When I was a deputy district attorney I would often fall back on the perks of the job during stressful periods. I was given a certain level of respect and reverence. I could tell people that I was a deputy district attorney and their level of cooperation would skyrocket because, for some reason that still escapes me, they were under the misapprehension that being uncooperative would somehow lead to an indictment. I never once got a traffic ticket. I never once had to serve on a jury. There are fewer temporal perks for a pastor. By and large, we are considered scum and the offscouring accumulated on the bottom of one’s shoe. In a morally relativistic society that is thoroughly non-Christian, telling people you’re a pastor meets with a reaction that borders on pity. Regardless, being a pastor and serving the Lord and His church is an honor and a privilege beyond words. I would never trade it for anything in this world.
What I have discovered having sat on both sides of the fence is a seminal truth: Stress is ever present no matter what you choose to do. Doing what is hard can be incredibly stressful, but the reward on the backend more than justifies the effort. Doing what is easy can be stress free, but the existential angst on the backend makes idyllic comfort feel like a rock in your shoe – a low-grade discomfort that eventually grows worse with time when it finally dawns on you that a rock in your shoe is the last thing you want when you’re about to kick the bucket.
But far too many buy into the lie that tells us that ease and idyllic comfort bring fulfillment and joy when the precise opposite is true. Genuine fulfillment and joy come in knowing that what you have done in this life will endure in the next. Dividends from the doing of what is hard endure in this lifetime and echo in perpetuity. Self-appeasement and instant gratification may provide momentary pleasure, but it never lasts, and the results are always short lived. Nobody wants to live for themselves, whether they realize that now or not. Nobody, at the end of their lives, wants to leave a legacy wrapped up in a single life devoted to comfort and temporal pleasure. That is a profound and unmitigated waste of time and time is a precious commodity in limited supply. Nobody wants to look back on a life where that precious commodity was spent on self-indulgence. Everybody wants to look back at a life of self-sacrifice for something greater – a cause that will endure beyond this life.
Nothing worth doing is easy. Genuine progress only comes with pain. Displeasure is dispositive of real impact. I have never met anybody, and neither have you, who has simply backed into a meaningful life on the steam of a life lived in pursuit of vanity. The ones who accomplish great things always live in pursuit of a purpose greater than themselves and that is always a life littered with pain.
There were numerous days as a deputy district attorney when I wanted to quit. During those times, I would always find myself wandering to a colleague’s office to read a motivational quote she had tacked up on her door. The quote is from Theodore Roosevelt. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
I have been the man in the arena. I like to think I am in the arena now. But, I have also lived as “those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” A life of valiant effort in the doing of what is hard is often met with failure and hardship. But, having experienced a lifetime both in and out of the arena I can tell you without hesitation that the pain, even the failure, that comes in the doing of what is hard is infinitely more satisfying than living a life wondering whether you’re doing anything at all.