Black Sweaters Are Really Hard When You're a Pastel-Aficionado

If you think about the definition of "hard" you'd think that it was rock solid and clear. Working in a field is hard, carrying a week's worth of groceries for a family of five up the stairs is hard, getting rid of all the weeds in the yard is hard. Backbreaking stuff is hard.

But so is sitting through the night with your feverish toddler, consoling your teenager when the first heartbreak arrives or realising that you can't fix everything for your children.

"Hard", despite all belief to the contrary, is quite fuzzy. It has a clear reputation, but when you look closer, you see that that reputation holds up about as well as the cheap toilet paper in the school restrooms. The word's meaning is flimsy to the point of uselessness.

When we compare the crosses that we bear to the cross the next person over, we often focus on the clearest meaning of "hard". We think about "am I doing more than she is" or "have I done more backbreaking work than the guy down the line". We think about the physical meaning of hard.

But there is a whole other meaning that "hard" also has. It can mean "difficult". Of course, "difficult" is almost as fuzzy as "hard". What is extremely difficult for me might be a breeze for someone else. There is no universal scale for difficult things. We all struggle with one thing or another from time to time.

Across all its different meanings, though, something is hard when it requires effort. In the case of rocks, they're hard because they require effort to break. In the case of lifting elephants, that's hard because it requires effort to do.

Sometimes, hard is what is invisible. It's the transformation from nothing into something.

Perhaps, the hardest thing for all of us isn't doing the stuff that we already know how to do. You know, the piles of laundry, the stacks of dishes. The hardest thing is looking beyond what's already there and coming up with the stuff we are missing. It's like the difference between picking something nice out of the clothes that you already have and the style-saving realisation that a simple black sweater is what is missing from your wardrobe.

The sweater in and of itself is simple. Getting it is also simple. And yet, finding that it was what would suit you better than anything in your pastel-coloured wardrobe was hard.

Of course, a personal stylist might have known immediately that a classic black sweater was the perfect thing for you. To THEM, it was easy, because they already knew about the sweater. While you had to come across its existence through an allnighter on Pinterest, all the personal shopper had to do was consult her mental inventory and pick from what was already there.

Hard isn't doing more of what you know, moving around the things that are already there, or making your way through your ToDo list.

Hard is finding the black sweater when you'd swear up and down that baby blue is the only colour that suits you.