i---------------------------------------- iDo the Hard Thing iNovember 08th, 2017 i---------------------------------------- i iI've been thinking about lessons that I want to teach my boy. iBoiling down all my experiences and knowledge to some core iprinciples that I can invest him with to help him in the future is iboth thrilling and overwhelming. On the one hand, I have a lot of ispecific things I've experienced I could steer him on, but I think iit will be difficult to make all the individual stuff stick with ihim. Instead I think it would be best to focus on principles, like iliving a life with the willingness to say "Yes!" to new iopportunites and challenges. That's what led me to the Navy, or to ithe Jesuits, or to live in Alaska. I think it's an important and igenerally helpful attitude to pass on. i iMost recently I was thinking about an idea I learned as a Jesuit inovice called "agere contra". It means to do the opposite. In the icontext of Ignatian spirituality it is making a reference to the itypes of comfort we experience by doing what comes easy and inatural to us. St. Ignatius thought that by avoiding these natural itrappings of "easy" we would be forced to rely on God as we faced ithe unknown scary things and in doing so become closer with Him. i iAs an example, when I started the novitiate, all of the novices iwere taken around the city to the various apostolates where we iwould be spending our "working" time during formation. There were ihospitals, nursing homes, hospice care, schools, food pantries, iand other various charities and social services. Our novice idirector told us to thing about the different places as we iexplored them and to pray on each of them and imagine ourselves iworking there. Only after we had done that did they introduce the iconcept of agere contra. The director said, list for me the top itwo apostolates which are the most intimidating to you, the iscariest, or the most unnatural to your experience and idisposition. What are the last choices you would make. And with ithat in mind, he helped assign us to something hard. i iIn my case that meant I worked in hospice care and elementary ieducation, both of which seemed terrifying. I went on to iexperience some of the most rewarding months of my life. I not ionly broadened my exposure to new things, but I also gained iconfidence in my ability (with God's help) to take on the unknown iand not just survive, but to thrive. i iIn the case of my son, the idea of agere contra might be a little ibit too complex. Maybe it takes a more sophisticated understanding iof the world and yourself to put it into action. But there are iparts I think he can grok even at 5 years old. i iDo the hard thing. i iThat's the heart I'm working on with him now. I think there's more iin that idea than just agere contra, too. As we face increasing ithreats to employment through automation, focusing on doing and ilearning what is hard is a generally safe way of proceeding. In iworking in a group, taking on the hard part will instill a valued isocial skill. Ethically it conditions him to avoid poor choices ithrough laziness. There's so much good that comes from choosing ithe hard path. i iTurning that lesson inward, I stare at my list of hobbies and icringe. I flounder and fail to progress because I am lazy and do iwhichever thing strikes my fancy. I need to be deliberate in my ipractice or study. I need to do the hard things. Lets see what iI can do with that principle and some motivation. i