Chapter 34

There is only one way to get better at harder and more difficult stuff - do more of it. You have to push things along a little bit more every day. You have to put heavier weights on the bar if you want to build more muscle. You have to think hard about difficult matters if you want to grow new brain cells. You have to try more complex maneuvers if you want to build your flexibility. “To get better at hard things, you need to do more hard things.” - Polson

This is a completely polar opposite approach from how I see most people wanting to live. The first question I hear coming out of people’s mouths is about how to make it easier and be more comfortable. Its that comfort that is killing us and making us weak. Your life and my life is already 1000 times more easy and comfortable than our not so distant relatives of 80-90 years ago. In fact their lives were so difficult that their average life spans were far shorter than ours are projected to be. Medical advances have impacted that life span in a huge way, but we also don’t wear ourselves to a frazzle physically each day just to survive anymore. Nor am I suggesting that we need to do that once again.

But there are practically no physical challenges in our lives any longer, and far too few mental challenges as well. These we have to put back in our lives in order to expand and grow and improve and get better at hard more difficult tasks.