The biggest paradox in life is simple: the hardest things are usually the ones that help you grow. They force you out of your comfort zone. They make you stronger.
One reason so many people in my generation are depressed is that they do not have a hard thing that is worth aiming for. They live on autopilot. Work 9 to 5. Watch Netflix. Go to a party on the weekend. And then repeat.
Sometimes life gives you that hard thing automatically. Having a kid, for example, is brutally hard but also meaningful. But what if you do not have that? What do you do now?
That is why so many millennials run marathons. A marathon is something hard. It gives you structure, meaning, and a clear goal. It demands you change your habits. It tells you who you are when things get tough.
For me, I am happiest when I have a goal in front of me. Something hard. Not impossible, but not easy either. If it is too easy, I get bored. If it is too hard, I give up. But the sweet spot, where I have to fight for it, that is where life feels good. I am reading Flow right now by the Hungarian psychologist Mihály CsÃkszentmihályi, and he explains exactly this. Real happiness does not come from comfort. It comes from challenge. From stretching yourself just enough that you lose track of time and become fully absorbed in the thing you are doing. That is where meaning lives.
One of my favorite sports anime, Blue Lock, explains the concept of flow perfectly in this video. It shows how athletes enter a state where everything else disappears and they become completely absorbed in the challenge at hand. This is flow in action.
The times when I was unhappy were always the times when I had no goal. I was just living. Eating badly. Drinking too much. Slowly sinking into a life I did not want.
So here is my takeaway:
Find something hard.
Stick with it.
Let it shape you.
Because without it, life gets empty fast.