20 Hardest Things to Do in Life
No matter how strong we think we are, when faced with certain life situations, we crumble.
In this post, we will take a look at 20 hardest things to do in life. Some of them you already know, some of them, you probably haven’t experienced yet. I hope you’ll never have to go through any of these, but if you do, here are some tips on how to handle them.
And may you have the strength to withstand the pain and not give up.
Some of the toughest things to do in life
1. Letting go of someone you love
Whether it is to death or another person, letting go of someone you love is never easy. When you invest in someone emotionally, you hope they’ll stay in your life.
But that isn’t what happens sometimes. You can’t love someone into staying anymore than you can love someone into cheating death.
And sometimes, even when the other person loves you in equal measure, time and circumstances force you to let go of them.
It’s in that moment you realize that love really isn’t enough. You accept it as a chapter in your life, cry your heart out, let the other go and move on.
2. Burying your dream
As someone who encourages people to go after their dreams and stepping out of their comfort zones in order to do so, this is difficult for me to admit.
Sometimes, no matter how hard we try and no matter how many times we get up again, some dreams just never come true. And it’s not because we don’t try hard enough, but because we just can’t figure out a successful path.
But there is grace in trying. Even if you don’t succeed the way you imagine, if you look back at your life honestly, you’ll realize you’ve achieved so many things to be proud of along the way.
Some people don’t even try. They wait for the perfect time, to have the right skill set, or a better economy until one day they wake up and decide it’s too late.
No matter what the story is, burying a dream you’ve held for a long time is hard. But it’s always worth it.
3. Remaining calm when being lied to your face
It’s one thing to be lied to and you don’t know you’re being lied to. But it’s quite another to be lied to while being fully aware of what the truth is.
It’s also one thing to be lied to about something trivial like someone’s achievements or their connections. But it’s something else for your spouse to tell you they’ve been working when you saw them at a restaurant earlier with another woman.
When something as significant as this happens and it cuts us deeply, it’s almost impossible to remain calm. You can’t wait to tell them you know the truth and make them look stupid.
You can’t wait to hurt or humiliate them for trying to make a fool of you. Confusion, anger and other emotions flood your mind when you know you’re being lied to.
When there are other things at stake, and we forget to remain calm, we end up becoming the bad person in the situation.
4. Not crying when being called names
You’d imagine only a 10-year old would feel the sting when being called names. But almost every adult’s been called names at work, at home, where they volunteer…
Usually, name-calling doesn’t really have any effect on us. But then there are times, like being called names when you are struggling to lose weight, especially by someone you trust and love deeply can be distressing.
The fact is, these people are just bullies. Instead of dealing with the issue like adults, they resort to name-calling to make themselves feel better and distract themselves from the main issue.
In the meantime, we try our hardest not to let the others see that they’re humiliating or killing us inside by not letting the tears fall.
It’s a hard thing to do, especially when the bully is your supervisor or manager at work and you need to remain professional.
5. Watching someone you love die everyday
This is one of the hardest things to do in life, and I hope none of you will ever have to go through this.
When a person you love is battling a terminal disease or old age day after day, you suffer internally with them. You’d do anything to alleviate their pain and help them feel better.
But you’re painfully aware that you’re completely powerless, no matter how many other people you’ve helped.
The one person that you want to help and make them smile is suffering right before your eyes, and there is absolutely nothing you can do except… wait.
It’s a terrible thing. Night after night, you cry yourself to sleep knowing that your time with them is numbered.
And in the morning, you can barely look yourself in the mirror knowing a part of you wishes they were gone already, if only to free them from pain.
6. Starting over later in life
I started over in my 30s so I know it’s hard. But then, there are those who start over in their 40s, 50s and 60s… The later you start over in life, the more difficult it becomes no matter what your circumstance is.
Some start over after a divorce, others after being declared bankrupt. Some start over after realizing they’ve been living a life that is just not fulfilling.
None of these make starting over easy. But it’s necessary and encouraged at any age the moment you feel that your life is not going the way you want it to. It’s a kind of course correction involving some really major changes.
And change as we all know, is never easy. But as difficult as starting over is, it’s always worth it, if you’re doing it for the right reasons.
7. Believing you can do it after a failure
So, I’ve failed at a particular goal of mine 11 times and counting. This goal is my dream and I am not yet ready to bury it. But you know what? Believing that I can do it after failing that many times, is hard.
My dream is relatively small though, with not too much at stake. For those who have risked everything to start a business and then failed for example, believing that they can do it if they tried again, is hard.
A bad, painful failure is difficult to shake off. It hits at the core of our confidence. If we were motivated and enthusiastic when trying for the first time, after a failure, those motivation and enthusiasm are shadowed by shame.
What we don’t realize in our vulnerability though, is that every failure has a lesson to teach us. It’s clichéd and it’s easy to dismiss, I know, but it is true. Your only chance of succeeding is if you learn those lessons after a failure.
8. Speaking up after being put down
Sometimes, we just make mistakes. Sometimes, the quality of our work is not at a level we’d want them to be. And sometimes, we just don’t know how to complete a task to our superior’s expectations. These things happen. We’re human after all.
Most of the time, we get called out for our mistakes and for delivering sub-par work. But if our bosses or supervisors take that as an indication of our general attitude or work ethic and put us down, it is difficult to speak up when we need to.
This is another case where our self confidence is eroded for making one mistake. If you’re strong, you can shrug it off and take it in your stride. If you’re not, you’ll always be ‘the one who can’t do things right’ in your mind.
And if you allow it to go on long enough, soon, you’ll let your supervisor or colleague put you down again, humiliate you in public and take advantage of you. Because in your mind, you have no right to disagree or voice out anything because you DID screw up.
No matter how hard it is, don’t ever train your mind to accept bullying and abuse because ‘I deserve it’. Everyone deserves respect and you have no less of a right to speak up just because you made a mistake.
9. Admitting to others you’ve lost your job
Losing your job is one of the hardest things to deal with in life. It’s even more difficult when you have to admit it to your loved ones, especially when you are the sole breadwinner.
But sometimes, it’s not so much about the resulting financial situation as it is a question of pride. If friends and family have been watching you doing your best at work and putting in extra hours, losing your job despite all that is difficult to explain.
It’s not even easy to explain to yourself. But a door never closes when there isn’t a window waiting to open.
10. Waking up in the morning
On a lighter note, waking up in the morning is one of the hardest things to do for many of us. Especially if it’s raining outside or if you just went to bed two hours ago.
Some are self-inflicted, of course, but even on a good day, even if you love your job immensely, waking up in the morning can still be difficult.
The only exception is when it’s the morning you’ll be going on a vacation.
11. Persevering
It’s been said many times that the key to success is not hard work or connections or intelligence. But rather, grit or perseverance. Experts have studied this particular trait and proven that yes, indeed, perseverance is a key component of success.
But when it’s time to grind, the humiliation and the pain is difficult to endure. At that point, it’s not even about physical strength anymore, it’s about mental strength and few have the capacity to be positive, to believe, to endure and to persevere.
Unless you have something very strong pushing you and pulling you in the right direction at the same time, perseverance will remain out of reach. But if you can persevere until the end, the reward will make all the pain worth it.
12. Losing everything
One of the hardest things to do is to find the will to go on after a devastating tragedy that strips you of everything. Everything you’ve ever worked for, everything you’ve painstakingly built, brick by brick.
I have seen how a nasty divorce can do this to a person, much like what a bankruptcy or a natural disaster can. No one can blame you for losing your optimism at a time like this.
And most people would try to help to make your life situation bearable. But at the end of the day, only you can arrive at the conclusion that you haven’t exactly lost EVERYTHING.
That you’re still alive, strong and capable of making hard decisions that will turn your life around. Almost everything we lose, we can build back, as long as we recognize the power that is us.
13. Trusting someone again
Ever had someone you trust and love stab you in the back? I have. I let them go in peace, but then they came back, almost as if nothing happened.
So, I let them in again but was I able to trust them? No, not really. Eventually, that trust was broken again and we’ve now gone separate ways.
Trust after broken, is one of the hardest things to gain back. Unless you are willing to forget what happened and purely look forward, trusting someone after a huge stab wound is just difficult.
14. Knowing what to say to someone grieving
If we’ve never been through the process ourselves, if we’ve never experienced death of a loved one, it’s difficult to know what’s the appropriate thing to say.
Almost everything you say can backfire if you were never close to the grieving person.
It helps to know how their relationship with the deceased was and the extent to which things will change now. But even then, a comforting word can be misconstrued.
The best I think, is to not attempt to discuss the death or what they’re going through beyond sending your condolences. No one can understand what they’re going through and you don’t have to.
But to be there close to them in silence is often good enough. To visit them or invite them for tea without going through what happened can also be relieving.
15. Agreeing to a surgery that you know will maim you
If you knew you a surgery you have to go through to fix a life threatening situation would require removing a limb, would you go through it?
Or if you knew that helping your child gain eyesight would mean you losing yours, would you still do it?
These are hard and unfair choices, having to choose one over the other when you want it all. I cannot imagine making a decision as hard as this.
But sometimes, these are our options. Doctors often say there’s a risk of death in almost any surgery, even in something as harmless as an appendectomy. But we rarely think about these risks until the nurses or doctor approach us with a bunch of indemnity papers to sign.
16. Questioning authority
For some, questioning authority is easy. But for others, especially in countries where authorities and the elders must be revered and held at highest regard, it is one of the hardest things to do.
Even if we are not from one of these places, we are likely to warily look around for supporters before deciding to become a dissident. And if we don’t have strength in numbers, we remain silent.
After all, everyone else is going through the same thing and they’re not complaining, right?
When we decide to question and oppose oppressive or unjust policies, we allow injustice to be perpetrated. And we bury the rights of those who don’t have a voice but will suffer more than we ever will.
17. Being 100% honest
Honesty is a virtue, for sure. But being 100% honest all the time is one of the hardest things to do and perhaps even impossible. Because, let’s be honest, when we’re 100% honest, we’re not going to be very popular.
I don’t know how many thoughts go on in our minds every day. Perhaps 50,000? An angel though you may be, out of the 50,000, at least 10,000 of your thoughts are going to be something not so nice about someone else.
When asked for your opinion by that someone, are you going to say that yes, they look fat in that dress or that they have a drinking problem? No, you’re going to be polite and say the politically right thing.
You’re not exactly honest, but it’s the only thing you can do to avoid hurting their feelings or ruining your marriage. After all, you can be right or you can be happy, right?
18. Giving up comfort
In all our lives, we are given the option to remain comfortable and risk stagnancy or, give up comfort and grow to meet our full potential.
When we have everything in life and all is fine, why should we even think about giving up comfort? It’s during this time that giving up comfort becomes the hardest thing to do. Why rock the boat?
Whenever we get too comfortable, we are making a dangerous bet that the situation we’re currently in will always be the same. But life is not predictable is it?
Look at the situation we’re in right now, for example. Did anyone even guess that at some point we will all be forced to work from home or lose our jobs?
No, no one did.
But it happened. Many who didn’t take the trouble to get uncomfortable and save when they were earning well, quickly regretted after they lost their job.
Yes, what we’re facing now is unprecedented, an anomaly. But to a person refusing to get uncomfortable even a little when everything is fine, everything becomes a disaster later, from a divorce to a disease.
All this to say, build your resilience and stretch your comfort zone when you’re not in survival mode so that if that time comes when you need to survive, you’ll have more space.
19. Smiling when your heart is breaking
How do you smile when someone you’ve loved for 15 years tells you they’ve found someone else? How do you smile when the interviewer of your dream job tells you you’re not qualified for the position?
Remaining poised and cheerful in the face of heartbreaking news is one of the hardest things to do in the world. And yet, we do it often, while our hearts scream inside.
We maintain composure, make sure we don’t make the situation awkward for the other person, thank them, wish them well and head home. We remain numb, still processing what just happened in our heads.
But the moment we’re alone, the tears pour out.
20. Fighting alone
Anyone who has ever had to fight for something they so dearly want against everyone else’s counsel would know how it feels to fight alone. It’s hard.
You expect your loved ones to stay by you while you battle it out, but after a while, they too leave to occupy themselves with something worth their while. You look behind and you realize you really are alone.
Thoughts flood your mind and you wonder what’s the point of fighting this hard when even the ones you love can’t see how much it means to you. You wonder if it’s worth it or if you’re just crazy.
It takes an extremely strong person to fight alone for their dream and against everyone around them…
That’s my 20 hardest things to do in life. Now it’s your turn. Have I left anything out? What’s the hardest thing you’ve had to do in your life?
