Choose Your Hard

Ryan Quintal

Have you ever had 2 really hard decisions to make that it was near impossible to choose one?

Sophie’s Choice is similar to the saying, being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea or between a rock and a hard place. Basically means when you have 2 difficult decisions to make. 

A brief history of the origin of the name. Sophie was a character in the novel Sophie’s Choice which was later made into a movie. The novel was set during World War 2. Sophie was in a Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. And was asked to make the “impossible” choice of picking either one of her 2 children to die or watch them both die?  Sigh.

While our difficult between the “devil and a hard place” choices may not be as morbid as Sophie’s, they will regardless require some difficult decision-making. 

This was the first slide out of 7 from this Instagram post that contains questions that will make you think deeply about your life and what you want to make of it.

While I loved all slides equally, this one struck a cord because I had had a conversation with a friend about that before. And also written about it in a different way here.

In the conversation, I was talking about some life decisions that I had made recently and said that while both situations (the previous and the current) are hard, I had decided that this new hard I can “work” with.

In video games like Streetfighter, you will need to pick your fighter. You know all the players, their strengths and weaknesses but you will have to choose one regardless. In choosing, you will decide whose weaknesses you can contend with to take advantage of his or her strengths.

Life and the choices we get to make aren't too different. Maybe life is a game after all. It’s all about how we spin the yarn right? Loll 

The thing is, we must know what is worth fighting for.

What is worth suffering for?

It’s said that if you want to eat a frog, you might as well eat a big frog. That way you make the most of your “suffering”.

What is worth suffering for and what are the upsides of that suffering?

My daughter has some exams she is preparing for and has been studying. She was moaning that she can't believe all her friends are enjoying their holiday and she is missing out. I told her that fun activities don't finish and she should make sure she does well in this exam so that all the fun she is missing won't have been for nothing. She needs to make the “suffering” worth it.

It’s really important that we acknowledge the suffering that will come with the choices we are making that way we are taking full ownership of them. This will make going through the rough patches “easier”. You have a sense of control knowing that you choose this struggle and not a case of “who sent me message” as we say.

What sufferings are going to be worth it for you?

The suffering of waking up in the morning to get a workout in so that you can lead a healthier life?

The suffering denying some thrills to start saving and build a stable financial future?

The suffering of walking away from something you have committed time in order to reverse some bad decisions?

Keep going,

Ije