Why Do We Do Hard Things?

I have just come back from India. I travelled mostly solo over seven states for seven weeks.

This was not my first trip to the subcontinent. I had been to India over 30 years ago. I travelled with my then partner for just over a week in Delhi, Agra and Jaipur – what is known as the tourist triangle. Despite having high expectations for an adventure, I didn’t like it then. I found it too chaotic, too dirty and too poverty-stricken. I was so disappointed with my own lack of resilience and toughness.

So this time, I knew what I was throwing myself into. I knew it would still be the same India. Even my well-travelled children thought it would be challenging for me.

Now my question is this: why do we do hard things? I could have easily gone to a Greek island, or even Japan, but why India?

This is not just me. One of my friends is now training to cycle from the UK to Rome. A few friends have travelled in India and Nepal for months. Others go to live in African countries for charity work. And not just travelling—countless numbers of people take part in marathons, triathlons and other incredible endurance challenges. Why do we do these things?

I think it’s because we want to test our edges. There’s something in us that wants to know how tough we really are. Every now and then, we feel the urge to challenge ourselves, to see what we’re made of, to expand our sense of what’s possible.

Doing something difficult gives us a chance to reset our perspective. When life doesn’t require us to be resourceful or solve problems, we can start gripping too tightly. We micromanage. We sweat the small stuff. Challenge pulls us out of that. It widens the lens and reminds us what actually matters.

And more than anything, I think we want to feel alive.

We want to be shaken a little. Tested. We want to feel our own energy moving through every part of us. We want to experience moments fully and intensely, not just drift through them.

So we, or at least some of us, are driven by the urge to do hard things.

I am not an adventurous type, but this time something inside me refused to let it go. I had to do it. I had to get it out of my system.