Do you have someone in your life that you go to when you need help making those hard choices? I do. During the pandemic, my friend Candace Cui started an advice newsletter - and I found myself really relating. I found myself really attracted to her “efficient honestly and frankness.”
When we lost our third child, last Jan, Candace was there. Just by coincidence, staying with us. Right before she arrived I had gotten the news and I didn’t know if I would be any fun this weekend, but she still came. She took me as I was. Around the same time, I was having dreams of expanding People I’ve Loved (my business) to start publishing other people’s work. Of course, I thought of Candace. It is a true joy to share her work with you and to have collaborated on this, the first printed edition of her advice column.
In celebration of her publication, which you can buy here if you are interested in more, I thought I would share her first essay with you today, it’s beautiful and they only get better:
Edition #1: “Why do we avoid the hard thing?”
November 19, 2021
In a 2014 study, researchers found that pain and the expectation of pain correspond to two different aspects of the brain. They measured pain intensity during a set of tasks described as “hard” or “easy”. Pain intensity was reported lower for harder tasks and higher for easier tasks; and they found that when we expect something to be harder, we prepare for it. We tense up and brace for the pain. According to this study, in the end, that preparation serves to lessen the pain.
I think that’s what you’re really asking about: hard things that we expect to hurt. After all, it’s the expectation of pain or discomfort that categorizes it as a “hard thing”.
So that’s the easy answer. We avoid hard things because of the anticipatory encounter of real and visceral pain, whether it’s physical, mental, or emotional.
What you aren’t asking, but I suspect is hidden inside your question is, “how do we deal with the hard thing when we can’t avoid it?” That’s not such an easy answer.
I could tell you to suck it up and just do it. But that (besides the fact that it’s pithy enough to be a sports apparel company’s slogan) isn’t a good enough reason. There are many times in our lives that we have to do things we don’t particularly want to do, but we get through it.
To take action on something that you know guarantees a high degree of pain requires something bigger than you might expect. It takes trust. Specifically, trust in yourself.
When I was thirteen, I was cleaning my room on a Saturday afternoon. My father came up the stairs and saw how slowly I was moving, so he flew into a rage. I’m sure we could think up any number of reasons why he reacted so strongly, from mental health issues to his own extremely unique and deprived childhood.
But the fact is that he approached me sitting on the ground and called me a stupid, lazy idiot. In Mandarin, so it was particularly sharp on the ears. Then he threw my lamp at me. Next, my phone. When he picked up my desk chair and it slammed against the wall by my head, I shot up and ran down the stairs.
It was winter in Tennessee, and I had only a thin sweatshirt and pajama pants on. I didn’t dare run to my best friend’s house up the street because that’s where he’d expect me to go. So without shoes on and breathing hard into the cold air, I climbed over the wide ditch between my neighborhood and the next. The ditch was filled with large, sharp rocks, and by the time I made it to a school friend’s house, you could have followed my trail by the blood like a stuck deer.
Her mother opened the door and the rest of the day is a bit of a lost memory. At some point, a different school friend was called. She and her mother picked me up in their minivan and took me to their house across town. I know they gave me a change of clothes, helped clean my feet, and fed me white chicken chili. It was the first time I’d ever realized chili could be any color but red.
Just to be clear, the hard thing in this case wasn’t running away.
The hard thing was making the decision to go home the next day. It was not telling anyone exactly what had happened to make me run. It was thinking about my baby sister and what would happen to her if our family was torn apart. It was thinking about my mother, whose English wasn’t good enough to ensure her a job as anything but a waitress. It was remembering what I had heard about the foster system. Of course, it was also my own fear about the future and deciding whether that fear was bigger than the fear of my father.
Here’s the problem with doing the hard thing. You won’t and may never know if it was the “right” thing to do. You could argue I should have asked my friends’ mothers to call child services. I might have asked to stay a little longer to think about my choices. I could even have gone to church that Sunday morning with their family instead of sitting in their living room, staring at my feet.
But I went home. I did it even though it was hard; because when I thought of all the choices I could make, it seemed like it would cause me and the people around me the least amount of lasting pain.
All I can hope for you, first intrepid advice seeker, is that you have the visibility to examine your options and that you can have enough trust in yourself to get through the hard thing without too much lasting pain.
Love, Candace
WHY DO WE AVOID THE HARD THING?
by Candace Cui
Advice on Life, Love, and Impossible Choices
In the summer of 2020, when the world was literally and figuratively on fire, Candace Cui started an advice column at dearcandace.com.
With the idea that humans simply want to know that someone is listening, an anonymous sounding board was created.
This book features 25 questions across four sections that together encompass the rich inner stories of humanity. Collectively, they fill an often empty or lonely space with thoughtful words, personal stories, and a dose of levity, like only Candace can give.
Am I qualified to give you advice? Well, I’m not a doctor or counselor. You should take my advice with a grain of salt, like you should with any advice from the Internet.
But I’m qualified to act like your best friend. I’ll do my best to hear you out and respond with love.
-Dear Candace
I, Carissa, sincerely hope you enjoy Candace’s thoughts. I hope they offer you some re-frames on impossible life choices. I know they have helped me just make it through the day.
Got anything you want my help with? Ask away! And I will get back to everyone. I promise. xoxo.
Wow. And it is so true that while running away is hard, nothing is harder than going back. Thank you, Candace and Carissa. xo
It's harder not to do the hard thing. If it is meant to be done/happen through us might as well go through and learn from it deliberately, consciously and courageously, there is no failure only lessons. Peace and love y'all