Choose Your Hard

Dear daughters,

Choose your hard.

That was an expression that entered my life while I was in a business coaching program. The context of the phrase was that you could choose to get up every morning, go to work, answer to a boss, and bring home moderate pay, or choose to be an entrepreneur and consistently post on social media to feed an algorithm, monetize your services and knowledge, and work from home (albeit way more than 40 hours a week) for potential buckets of money (emphasis on the potential). Choose your hard.

But I think I’ve come to the conclusion that (for now, at least) the hard I choose has nothing to do with hustling or productivity or earning or any of that. The hard I choose is actually stepping away from it all and spending my time being present together with you.

Don’t get me wrong – spending time with you is a gift – not something hard to do. But, let’s be real – it’s hard to feign interest in playing hide and seek after the 16th round. It’s hard to wake up at 6:00 and be completely responsible for another human’s (or two human’s) health, education, and emotional wellbeing for the next 13+ hours of the day every day. It’s hard living in constant fear of financial ruin because I’m not bringing in a paycheck while I play alphabet Bingo with you all day.

At the end of the day, though, when you tell me that you “love me to the moon and back and up a grassy hill and through a goat’s belly,” for playing keep-it-up with a balloon with you, that makes every bit of this hard worth it to me.

This is the hard I choose. The hard that asks me to go against my conditioning and NOT hustle or base my worth on my productivity. The hard that tests my nervous system’s capacity to handle constant noise and mess. The hard that stretches us out of our financial comfort zone.

Every life has it’s hard. It’s remembering that we get to choose what it looks like that matters.

Which hard will you choose?

With love and support for whatever path you decide is best for you,

Mom