Choose your hard. Press enter or click to view image in full size Photo by Jason Dent on Unsplash A better life is hard. Mere existence is also hard. I’ve chosen my hard. And working on it. Nurturing your best relationships is also hard. Anything worth doing takes work. Everything worth having, a great body, a better marriage, a smart brain, or a successful project has a price. You pay that in effort, or you pay it in regret. Either way, you pay. “No man is more unhappy than he who never faces adversity. For he is not permitted to prove himself ,” Seneca said. If you avoid the work, you become a burden on your mind. Regrets eat you alive. To build a “great” life, choose your “voluntary hard.” Choose the stress of growth over the stress of decay. You don’t want the pain of mere living. Difficulty is not optional if what you want is a great life. You don’t get to opt out of hard. You only get to decide which version of hard you’re willing to tolerate. Most people haven’t made that choice consciously.…