Everything Worth Having In This Life Is Hard Work

I have shied away from hard work my entire life. When I was a child, I was often told that if I would only apply myself, I would get better grades. I was often told that I was smart, but that I wasn’t putting forth my full effort. Admittedly, it was (and sometimes still is) difficult for me to put effort into something that I don’t care about. On the same note, it’s often hard for me to continue caring about something long-term without losing interest eventually. For example, the idea of starting a blog ran through my mind a million times before I finally decided to take a stab at it.

This attitude of feeling gratified doing the bare minimum continued through my teen years and early adulthood. I graduated high school with honors, but just barely. I passed all of my college math and science classes but with C’s at best. I eventually graduated college but it was a close call - I had almost failed my scope and methods class, which was needed for my poli sci degree.

I’d held several jobs in my early and mid-twenties, but my attendance was always poor. I always did the bare minimum at work to not get fired, and for the most part, it worked. I actually scoffed at co-workers who seemed to care about their jobs, because why would they? At that time in my life, except for close family and friends, everything in my life was a means to an end and I didn’t understand why people cared so much about so many unimportant things. I needed to go to school to be able to build a career, and I needed a career to make money. That was it. I held no emotional connection to what I was doing on a day-to-day basis.

Between the ages of 19-23 years old, I worked for a certain popular theme park in Central Florida. There were a lot of old timers there - people who had worked there for decades and were perfectly content earning pennies for a living. These people often seemed to take their jobs the most seriously. Well, one of these employees was annoying the hell out of me one day and I’d rudely asked him something along the lines of, “Why do you even care? This isn’t a real job anyway.” This guy wasn’t exactly a gem to work with, but I still feel bad about saying that to him all those years ago. He’d seemed taken aback as if I’d really hurt him. At that time, he was in his 40s, supporting his wife, usually working about 60 hours a week doing the same thing as 18-year-olds. But, he was happy enough to where he had no plans to leave. For him, that was his end game and he took it seriously. And here I was, not even old enough to drink yet, insulting his chosen career path.

The consequences of not being able to put full effort into anything began to catch up with me in my mid-twenties. One day, I decided to start doing my makeup on social media. I had this grand plan to become viral and turn this hobby into my full-time job. If Manny MUA and Laura Lee could do it - why couldn’t I? But when I began to realize that it’s not all fun and games - editing videos is actually pretty difficult and time-consuming - I lost interest and eventually quit altogether. I couldn’t be bothered to put in so much effort and reap no reward out of it. 

A couple of years later, I became hyper-fixated on starting a podcast. At the time, I was obsessed with Crime Junkie and Big Mad True Crime and felt like becoming a true crime podcaster was something really glamorous. That is, until I realized how much time it takes to do research, write some kind of script/outline, and record yourself talking. To my partner’s dismay, I eventually gave up this dream as well. This pattern of starting and quitting hobbies and career goals began to poke holes in our relationship.

My most serious crime, however, was flirting with the idea of going to law school for so many years. I had decided pretty young that I wanted to become a lawyer upon graduating from college - that’s why I’d majored in political science. But, like so many other things, it was just too hard and required too much effort for me to keep caring about it. I’ve taken the LSAT 3 times now. Each time I had bunkered down to study, I would go super hard for a month or two but then lose interest, resulting in relatively low LSAT scores. Picking up and putting down the idea of law school for about a decade nearly ended my relationship with my partner forever. He had told me several times that he wanted someone stable - someone who could choose a path, stick to it, and work hard to succeed. That concept was all but foreign to me.

Then, just a few months after turning 30, I gave birth to my beautiful baby. Logically, I knew that motherhood was going to be difficult at times but wasn’t prepared for just how difficult it would be. Those newborn days were so rough on us. Having to wake up in the middle of the night pretty every night nearly took me out. I remember googling, “Is it possible to die from sleep deprivation?” I don’t care what anyone says - toddlers are a million times easier than newborns because they sleep way better. That might be a hot take, but I’m sticking to it.

A few weeks after Bebe was born, my partner had gone out for his company’s holiday party, and I was at home with the baby by myself. After I had put her down to sleep, I had fallen asleep, too. In the middle of the night, she woke up screaming (as was often the case), and I was next-level tired. The kind of tiredness that made me feel like a zombie. I thought to myself, “I just can’t do this, this is too hard.” I felt absolutely frantic and I couldn’t figure out how to console her back to sleep. Typically, whenever both my partner and I were there, we would take turns trying to put her back down, but tonight, I was on my own. Have you ever woken up so startled and so tired that you feel like you’re about to have a stroke? That was me. 

I eventually tapped into the better side of my brain and told myself “I have to do this; I am this baby’s mother.” There was no other choice. Was I just going to put her down in the bassinet and let her cry while I went back to sleep? Of course not. I put on my big girl pants and went through my mental newborn checklist - change diaper, check for hair tourniquets, feed baby, rock to sleep. When my partner came home, Bebe was sleeping peacefully in my arms after nursing. Becoming a mom turned me into someone who had to be responsible, who had to be present. And most of all, this wasn’t something I could just put down like law school or podcasting. 

The perseverance I had built up for parenthood also found its way into other areas of my life. I decided it would be practical and entirely realistic for me to settle on being a paralegal (I had already worked in the legal field for many years, so this goal would be relatively easy and would not require any additional student loan debt). So, that’s the career path I’ve been on, even now. It provides us with a decent second income for our family and my hours are stable, allowing me to have the work-life balance I need to be a good mother.

One night, my partner and I were lying in bed and I thought, “Everything in this life that’s worth having is hard work” - the inspiration for this article. Working provides us with income to take care of our family. Cleaning the house gives us and our children a healthy, safe environment to live and play in. Being present for our children gives them a stable, happy home to grow in. This mental shift made me feel tremendously gratitude for all that I have.

I don’t ever want to take anything for granted.

XOXO, Alexis.