"You kids have it so easy these days. In MY day, we walked uphill to school—both ways! We chopped wood before breakfast and milked the cows at dawn. And we were grateful for it!"

The voice in my head is crystal clear—complete with a finger wagging in my face. I call him "The Grandpa," and he's been with me for years. He's perpetually disappointed by modern comforts, convinced today's problems are trivial, and certain that everything wrong with the world can be traced back to "THE COMMIES."

Sound familiar? I bet he lives in your head too.

The Relativity of Hardship

The Grandpa's mission seems noble enough: to give me perspective, to remind me how good I have it compared to previous generations. But there's always been something that doesn't quite click with his logic.

Joe Rogan captured it perfectly on an interview:

"The hardest thing that's happened to you is the hardest thing that's happened to you. If it's a parking ticket or if it's your parents being blown up by a drone, it's still the hardest thing that's ever happened to you."

This stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it. Rogan went on to describe how united Americans became after 9/11—suddenly, our collective "hardship bar" was raised, and the petty conflicts evaporated overnight.

The Generational Gauntlet

Every generation faces their own version of hell:

The Greatest Generation (1901-1927) endured the Great Depression and World War II, then had to rebuild society from the ashes.

The Silent Generation (1928-1945) grew up in the shadow of war and lived under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation.

Baby Boomers (1946-1964) weathered Vietnam and marched for civil rights, while experimenting with consciousness-expanding substances that shook the foundations of society.

Generation X (1965-1980) watched as AIDS decimated communities, tech bubbles burst, and divorce rates soared, teaching them skepticism as a survival skill.

Millennials (1981-1996) had their worldview shattered by 9/11 as teenagers, then entered adulthood just as the economy collapsed in 2008.

Generation Z (1997-2012) has grown up in a world of constant digital connection yet increasing isolation, climate anxiety, and a global pandemic that stole their formative years.

These shared experiences don't just shape our memories—they fundamentally alter our values and perceptions of what constitutes "hardship." Place The Grandpa in a room with a Gen Z activist, and they might as well be speaking different languages.

Who's Really at the Wheel?

All this made me wonder: If I've been unconsciously programmed by cultural forces, family dynamics, and historical events since birth, how much of "me" is actually... me?

This question launched me into the wilderness of personal growth. I devoured Michael Singer's "The Surrender Experiment" and thought, "I spent countless hours in church listening to priests talk about how God works, but this is the first time I'm reading about how I work."

That book became my gateway drug. Soon I was deep into healing modalities, spiritual deep dives, and countless conversations with healers and friends—all in service of uncovering who I truly am beneath the layers of social conditioning.

Raising the Bar

They say life comes in two acts: the first is learning to survive, and the second—if you choose to begin it—is discovering who you're meant to be.

As I peeled back my conditioning, I began deliberately raising my own "hardship bar." I challenged myself to build a better marriage. I put myself in precarious situations to test my resilience. I systematically confronted the parts of my ego that kept me small.

From the outside, it probably looked like I was losing my mind:

• Shutting down a profitable business with no backup plan

• Moving to a new home almost yearly in a restless search for "the right place"

• Inviting brutal feedback about my behavior while simultaneously going through hormone therapy

There was definitely a whiff of masochism to it all.

But internally, I was gaining something precious: genuine self-knowledge and the ability to choose my responses rather than simply react.

The Freedom of Losing Control

Walking away from that business taught me that the universe actually does have my back when I follow my truth.

The nomadic years showed me that finding a real home is always worth the journey, no matter how long it takes.

Shattering my ego during testosterone therapy revealed how easily I can get trapped in my own mental narratives.

These lessons gave me the kind of control that actually matters—control over my mind rather than being controlled by it.

Nothing feels worse than looking back on a decision you thought was your own, only to realize it was driven by unconscious programming rather than conscious choice. You see this programming at work in the racist, the zealot, the narcissist, the blindly partisan—but recognizing it in yourself? That's the real challenge.

Die Before You Die

There's an ancient inscription over a door at St. Paul's Monastery on Mt. Athos in Greece:

"If you die before you die, you won't die when you die."

I first encountered this paradox in Brian Muraresku's "The Immortality Key." Its meaning is profound: if you want to truly live, you must confront the hardest thing imaginable—death itself. Master the fear of death, and you can move through life unshackled by lesser anxieties.

This is where my love for mountain biking comes in. Before settling down, I spent countless summer days hurtling down Keystone Mountain, my entire being focused on simply staying alive on a narrow dirt path.

The focus required to navigate those black diamond trails didn't just clear my head—it rewired my approach to challenges in every area of my life. If I could survive those death-defying descents, surely I could handle a difficult conversation or career setback.

The Wisdom of Difficulty

Mark Twain advised us to "eat the frog" first thing in the morning—tackle the hardest task when your willpower is strongest. The principle is universal: consciously raising our threshold for difficulty builds resilience that spills over into everything else.

• The mountain biker learns to spot obstacles and adjust in split seconds

• The chess master develops the ability to abandon a cherished strategy when the board changes

• Even the gamer cultivates patience when confronted with glitches and lag

The Million-Year Shortcut

If you subscribe to reincarnation, as I do, you might believe we're all destined to learn the same fundamental lessons—just in different orders and through different experiences.

The masters of Kriya yoga make an extraordinary claim: without deliberate spiritual practice, it takes the average human soul about a million years to reach enlightenment.

But practice Kriya yoga diligently, they say, and you can compress that journey into a single human lifetime.

That's the power of taking the wheel—of sitting quietly in meditation, eating the frog, getting on the bike, doing the hard thing when every fiber of your being resists it.

Because when you emerge on the other side—whether you "succeed" or not—you will have learned something essential about yourself and the nature of reality.

And as long as you're doing that, in the cosmic long game, you can't lose.