Heading down the sidewalk of a street in New York City, you get the sense that there is something wrong with many people. Look at the way that they walk. Look at the momentary hold ups they cause. It’s a river of people creating its own eddies and backflow.

When I don’t have anywhere I need to be in a hurry, I like to take a second to watch: how they have no idea where they are going (and how hard navigating is). How unnatural it seems to be for them to walk in a straight line, or walk quickly. They veer this way and that way, or more often, drift slowly off kilter and don’t even realize it.

Two people manage to take up 6-10 feet of lateral space between them, conspiring unintentionally to block others from going around. Where on the earth is stopping abruptly when there are people behind you a common practice? They get surprised and scared because they get bumped, as if there wasn’t such thing as spatial awareness. Nobody snuck up on them, they just weren’t paying attention.

I see it as a metaphor. Here are a bunch of different people trying to go in different directions and do a bunch of different things. It’s life.

Some are deliberate and self-contained. Others are not. Is there more aggression in the former than the latter? Absolutely. But more responsibility as well. Less externalizing and disruption too.

How out of reach that all seems to be for many. These are easy things that seem to be so hard. And then we wonder why real obstacles seem to set people back in life. How we are caught off guard or easily discouraged by them.

We can’t even walk straight. Go or wait? I don’t know, what do the rules say? We see a runner bearing down in the opposite direction, left or right? There are no rules, better freeze.

A few simple traits cut through this knot of indecision and impotence: knowing where you’re going (or rather, that you are going somewhere), knowing the value of your time, appreciating the existence of other people (and treating them as they deserve), and proper carriage. That is, to carry yourself properly, directedly and under your own volition.

And to not be alarmed when you realize how much this sets you apart from the crowd.

You are soft. If you were born in my generation or thereabouts, you are almost certainly soft. You live a nerf life in a nerf world, filled with nerf delusions.

Check the boxes. Put in your 8 hours a day. Get what you you earned. Get anything.

Nope.

That’s not how it works. But you don’t get to complain that the game is rigged. Why? Because it’s basically fairer than it ever has been. It’s unlikely you’ll suddenly die. You don’t have to go to war. You can travel from place to place and never, ever worry about pirates.

Yet we’re soft. We quit early. Settle. Complain. Think we deserve a break. Make lazy, self-serving assumptions. Try to get the most for the least work.

Stoicism is hard. Cato was hard. They were obstinate, in a good way.

Consider what hustlers call their work: “grinding.” Not “the grind,” diminutively like us, but grindin‘. The hustle. Working all day and all night, looking for an angle, taking their share. They have to, there is no other way.

You have to cultivate that hardness. And you better start soon, because we’re all in the same ghetto now. How? Savagery is one way. You have to learn to love the struggle. To know how to grit your teeth, and promise yourself that you will never, ever let something like that happen to you again.

Everything is a test. It’s a test to see how hard you are. Will you keep going? Can you get to your knees? Can you get you to your feet? Can you try again? Can you bear it? There’s no end in sight, how long can you last?

Stop failing this test. Stop being soft.