It's Never Easy

If there is one phrase I hate hearing, it is this:

"This doesn't come easy for me, like it does you."

I know that people are wanting to say that you're smart, and that you're a fast learner. But a lot of times it comes off as an excuse for why they are struggling through things. And over time, you start to believe this lie. You believe that you're just a natural at whatever you're doing in life. But you forget about the days of work put into learning a new thing. The months of constant failure to get one thing right. And the years of perfection to get to where you'd consider yourself an expert.

Hours of notes were taken

The human brain is a weird thing. You can forget things that are important without even realizing. While at the same time, remembering every word to the new single from your favorite band. That seems backwards sometimes. But why does this happen? Well to start, we have to realize the most complicated thing in the world is the human brain...as decided by the human brain(let that sink in).

But why is it that we forget the hard times, and only remember when we got things right? Well for starters, we should be thrilled that we only remembered the right way to do things. Could you imagine if your brain remembered all the different ways to not do something, but always forgot the right way? Chaos would ensue.

Hard times suck, and boring times are worse. Our brains are real good about throwing out junk information. Don't believe me? What happened about 10 minutes into your morning commute 2 weeks ago? Too hard, how about this morning? Still can't remember? That's because your brain perceived this repetitive action as useless information. Much like all the hours you were Googling for an answer. Struggling to figure out what magic order of words would lead to the promise land of a Stack Overflow question with a verified answer that worked just for you. Your brain saw all that work leading to an answer as repetitive junk.

So why is this a big deal? Well over time you start to get confident. Your brain only remembers the answers, and not the work it took to get there. And when you reach a difficult spot, you panic. Now, one of two things happens here.

1. You freeze, decide that this is too hard for you and find something else to do.

or 

2. You do like you've done every time in the past. And push through the hard and learn something new.