Hard is coming, regardless. Subject them to it early & often.
“People think ‘wanting their kids to have it better than they had it’ means subjecting them to a life of ease.
Especially physical ease.
However, kids who do hard things tend to fare better than kids who do easy things.
Hard is coming, regardless.
Subject them to it early (and often).
-Ray Zingler on X
We all want our kids to have it better than we had it, right?
And we’ve also heard the quote 1,000 times now, “Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times.”
And that quote is undoubtedly true.
And if we know this to be true, yet we subject our kids to a life of ease, because we “can”, are we really doing what’s best for them?
Or are we setting them up for failure by breeding entitlement into their bones?
I’ll never forget this story.
Years ago, I had a member at our gym who would irregularly show up to his sessions, so I reached out to his mother to ensure everything was okay.
She replied, “oh yeah, he’s fine! I always ask him if he wants to go to training, but he prefers to play video games instead…”
WHAT!?
Are you kidding me?
Chalk buckets, cold iron, and loaded carries or xbox, headsets, and gummy worms? Which one do you think he’s going to choose if given the choice?
You’re letting your teenager with an undeveloped frontal lobe, conditioned to take the path of least resistance choose whether he wants to go to a growth oriented obligation you and your family have committed to?
Do you think that kid is going to go on to live a thriving, successful life? And worse yet, how’s he going to raise his kids if has them?
And this happens with kids every single day.
There is nothing perceived to be at stake (right now) so people justify this WEAK, lazy behavior.
It’s not doing what’s best for them, it’s doing what’s easiest.
It’s much easier to just cave to their laziness so parents can check out and play on their phones instead of having to act like responsible parents who (actually) want what’s best for their kids.
The real world doesn’t care what neighborhood you grew up in. It doesn’t care who your daddy was. Or how much is sitting in that trust fund, either.
True success and fulfilling one’s life purpose, comes with doing hard things.
Choose hard. It’s more valuable than easy.
And guess what..
Hard is coming, anyway.
