Three Practices for When Life Hurts: Why Everything Feels So Hard and What To Do About It

It amazes me how a person can be surrounded by comfort and still feel constantly offended by life.

I don’t mean that as a sneer. It’s aimed at me as much as it’s aimed at anyone else. I can catch myself treating a small annoyance like it’s a personal attack: the coffee is lukewarm, the line is slow, the seat doesn’t recline the way it used to, the hotel pillow is too flat and hard, the customer service bot won’t answer my question, the group text won’t stop buzzing, the app crashes, the kid spills something sticky or interrupts me mid-sentence, and my spouse looks at me with that look that says, You’re being a lot right now.

Then I open my phone and realize I’m not alone. The air is thick with it: Can you believe this? Did you hear what he posted? Did you hear what the school board decided? Did you see the new policy? We’ve become a culture of constant “can you believe,” as if outrage itself is a virtue.

And a strange thing happens: our bodies respond like we’re under attack.

A brain trained on convenience starts interpreting friction as danger. Minor resistance becomes major distress. The smallest “no” feels like rejection. The smallest delay feels like disrespect. The smallest discomfort feels like an emergency.

Which is why living a life devoted to Christ feels so insulting to modern people.

He calls each of us to die to self, refuse to let comfort run the show, and pick up our cross and carry it with joy.

This essay was sparked by Lent—but the problem it names isn’t seasonal. It’s everywhere: our hair-trigger outrage, our panic at inconvenience, our reflex to numb, spin, and flee discomfort. Lent just gives the language and the courage to say it out loud. The practices at the end—chosen discomfort, clear-sighted daily review, and received pain—aren’t “Lent tips.” They’re year-round training for a life that can carry reality without collapsing, and for a love that doesn’t evaporate the moment it costs something.

We literally worship a crucified Savior. A Savior who didn’t float above pain, didn’t outsource suffering, didn’t treat inconvenience like a violation of His rights. If Christianity has a central image, it is a Cross.

So how did so many of us become the kind of people who can look at that Cross—and then melt down because the day got hard?

Part of the answer is that we’ve been taught a thin definition of happiness.

A lot of us assume happiness is a feeling: good mood, calm nerves, the inner weather cooperating. That’s like confusing the smell of dinner with dinner itself. Smells are real. Feelings are real. They matter. But they are not the meal.