One of them was being lead on a field team that had to reset routers at a customer site and reboot servers on 9/11/2001. We went into the office and everyone was excused from work for the day, so we spent the evening with cleaning people watching events unfold on TV monitors. Pretty grim, though others obviously had it a lot worse.

Maybe not hard, but a bit startling was asking the Coast Guard Recruiter when I'd be off to Cape May NJ. He said "This afternoon". Oh? Later, at boot camp, I wasn't much of a swimmer, so diving 8 feet into the water feet first was rough for me. I had to take my glasses off for the dive, otherwise they'd be lost for who knows how long, and could barely see the water, but did pass the swim test.

And picked up my glasses from the deck.

Just to lighten things, it's like my visit to the optometrist. He asked me what were the smallest letters I could see on the wall. I asked "what wall?"

Worked a consistent 9-5 remotely. Maybe it's ADHD or something else, but it took me a long time to become accountable to myself when there's no one watching over my shoulder. Especially when the weather is nice and the sun is shining and I'd rather be outside or talking to my friends. I still struggle with it sometimes. When I first started working, I used to cry every night because I knew I much less done and worked much less hard than I should have. And then did the exact same thing the next day.

I know "doing your job" is not the most impressive accomplishment. But it is hard for me. Much harder for me than kicking my nicotine addiction, working out every day, teaching myself math and computer science, and so on.

Starting my first real business was easily the hardest thing I've ever done. I didn't know enough about doing that to even know what I didn't know, and I didn't know how many nontechnical, but critical, core skills I was missing (and therefore didn't find ways of covering them soon enough).

The ones after that were much easier.

getting out of bed every morning is the hardest thing ive ever done. every single time.

Follow Christ.