Life isn't all about struggling

The art of calculated suffering

Struggle. The self-help industry and your motivational LinkedIn connections want you to believe that life is some kind of eternal uphill battle, with every moment of suffering a badge of honor for the grand cathedral you're allegedly building out of your existence. Here's the truth: life doesn’t have to be a slog. Sometimes, it’s a goddamn slip-n-slide. And when that happens, you’re better off throwing yourself down it face-first, screaming, and laughing at the people trying to scale the rocks beside you.

Take it from me. I spent two years trying to start a business that was doomed from day one. It was an app. A brilliant idea, if you asked me: a subscription service for… pets. Yeah, not pet owners, just pets. It sounds as stupid now as it did then, but in my head, it was genius. You’d sign up, and your cat or dog or emotional support ferret would get a curated monthly box of toys, treats, and eco-friendly poop bags or whatever. I poured my savings, my time, and my soul into this. And every day felt like dragging my body through wet concrete.

Emails unanswered. Meetings that led nowhere. Developers ghosting me. I knew I was bad at this, but instead of stopping to rethink, I doubled down because that's what “resilient” people do, right? I was being gritty. And miserable. And poor.

Then one day, mid-email to a VC who’d already politely declined me twice, I accidentally deleted the draft. That moment—watching my Hail Mary disappear into the void—was like someone snipping a string inside me. I stared at my laptop, felt something between panic and relief, and then… closed the lid. Just shut it and didn’t open it again for a week.

You know what happened? Nothing catastrophic. The world didn’t implode. My landlord didn’t kick me out. And for the first time in years, I slept. That’s when I started realizing the whole thing was a fight I didn’t need to win. So I stopped trying. I let it go. It sucked, but what sucked more was imagining another year of feeling like a dumb hamster on a wheel.

A few months later, I stumbled into freelance writing. Not because I was chasing it, but because it was there and I had rent due. Someone needed some snarky copy for their Instagram captions, and apparently I’m fluent in snark. One gig turned into another, then another, and before I knew it, I was making more money in less time than I ever did with my stupid app. It didn’t even feel like work most days. And that’s when it hit me: the secret sauce wasn’t some grind-until-you-die hustle. It was recognizing when things flowed effortlessly and leaning the hell into that.

Sure, sometimes you’ve gotta do stuff that sucks. Taxes suck. Scrubbing your toilet sucks. But here’s the deal: you can’t live in that state of constant attrition. Humans can’t survive on a diet of struggle alone, no matter what Instagram hustle gurus tell you. You’ll break. Worse, you’ll look around and realize everyone beating you at the game isn’t tougher or smarter—they’re just people who show up every day to do the thing they actually like doing.