Hard Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Better
This might be a roundabout reflection, but stay with me, I have a feeling this might meet you somewhere along your own path, maybe even a place you’ve quietly carried for a while.
Lately, I’ve been sitting with a shift. One I didn’t expect and one I didn’t know I needed.
I’m a runner. I run every day, until recently, when injury forced me to stop, and that has been a complete emotional journey on its own, let alone a physical healing one.
If you know anything about running, you might be aware of these training structures: intervals, speed sessions on the track, long runs, and strength training sessions, each designed to complement your training. And for years, I believed the only sessions that counted were the ones that left me exhausted, wiped out, totally breathless. Only when it hurt, when it cost me, did I believe I’d earned something…that I earned the session or the run. I craved the effort, the challenge, and I trusted it. I even equated it with worth.
If it came too easily, I felt uneasy, suspicious. Like I hadn’t done or run hard enough…I must not have given it everything.
But somewhere, between the stillness of not running and the quiet observation of my own thoughts, something shifted.
What if harder doesn’t always mean better? Now, you may be thinking, how does this relate to photography?
What if I’ve been carrying the belief that everything, my work, my creativity, my dreams, needs to be pushed into existence? What if I’ve been holding so tightly to the idea that success must be hard-won, scraped together through striving and self-sacrifice?
And what if… It’s not true?
In my photography journey, which has been anything but linear, more like the scenic, winding route with a few pit stops. I’ve spent years climbing invisible hills, building things from scratch, always reaching. Always efforting. Always trying so hard and reaching for that next branch on the tree. And while I’m proud of that work, I’ve realized that I also associated ease with laziness or not doing enough. Flow with “this is too easy.” Rest with falling behind. If I’m not being productive in a moment, then I must be lazy, or I’m not doing enough.
But here, on the sidelines of the road (literally), I’m beginning to understand something different.
That maybe… goodness flows when we allow it.
That maybe things don’t have to be hard to be meaningful.
That maybe ease can be sacred too.
This doesn’t mean we abandon hard work or discipline, because challenges and struggles shape us like a diamond. I recently learned that butterflies actually need to struggle to leave their cocoon to build the strength in their wings to fly. If you help them out of their cocoon, they don’t have the strength to live and will most likely die.
Humans need challenges and struggles to grow, evolve, and learn. Resistance refines us, but there is a difference between the natural friction of growth and the self-imposed pressure of over-efforting, the kind that leaves us depleted, not expanded.
There’s a fine line between working hard and trying to prove your worth through exhaustion.
You don’t have to burn yourself out to earn what’s already meant for you.
You can choose to move from trust. You can believe that you’re already enough, that your past efforts are still taking root. That the seeds you planted in faith will bloom in their own time, with light, rest, and care. You can trust that your effort is more than enough. You don’t need to have the blood, sweat, and tears to be worthy of what is already yours. You can let things come to you with the effort you’ve put into it. It’s good enough…let it be good enough.
Sometimes, the most courageous thing we can do is allow ease and to open to support. To believe that inspiration and beauty can find us in stillness and being, not just in the striving. We are human beings, not human doings, as cliché as that sounds.
So I guess what I’m trying to share is:
Let it be enough.
Let you be enough.
Trust your rhythm.
Rest when you need.
You don’t need to prove your desire for a goal or dream by constantly striving or struggling
Create from joy, not just grit.
Be open to the path of less resistance (yes, that old, wise Taoist concept is true), not because you're lazy, but because you’re wise enough to know when to soften and allow. To know that you’ve done your part and now you have to surrender and pass along the reins to something higher. It is co-creation with the universe or whatever higher power you believe in. You don’t have to go at it alone and struggle and work your way there by yourself. Maybe this all sounds a bit mystical to you, but from personal experience, I’ve realized the power of doing the “hard work” and then letting the outcome of it go. It’s not in my hands anymore; I’ve done my part, and I no longer need to run myself ragged to force it to happen, just like running myself into the ground in a track session. Because it was in those pure moments of letting things go, a new opportunity or idea sprouted. Or in the case of running, I was just open to flowing, rhythm, and trusting my body.
Be open to the flow and surrender your effort you’ve put in.
Life is hard enough as it is; we don’t need to make it more difficult or add another layer of pressure or burn ourselves out when we’ve already put in the honest work.
And when it feels easy, or light, or flowing, let that be a blessing, not a sign that you aren’t doing enough. Let that be your reminder: you are allowed to receive with open hands. You are allowed to feel good and content with the effort and work you’ve put in. You don’t have to wrestle our dreams into reality. What if you just walk towards them with an open heart, put in the work, and let them meet you halfway because you’re already worthy and enough? It's in that space of flow, rhythm, and ease that we begin to trust, and in that trust, the friction dissolves, allowing our seeds to finally take root and grow in the sunlight that's already shining brightly down on us.
