I was building a brand around cleaner living. Non-toxic. Intentional. Fewer ingredients.
And I was ready to inject a synthetic drug into my body, because I couldn't see another path.
My wife saw the contradiction before I did.
“So what, you're just going to be on this drug for the rest of your life?”
“Do you really just want to take the easy way out?”
“You've done just about everything under the sun except that.”
Her words stung because some part of me knew they were true. So we made a compromise. I'd try to do it naturally for a week or two first. If I gave it a real effort and failed, I could revisit the drug. At least I would have honestly tried.
I didn't need the shortcut taken off the table forever. I needed one honest week.
Let me be careful here, because this is not a sermon about medication.
Maybe the shortcut is right for you. Some shortcuts are. That call belongs to you — and where it's medical, to you and your doctor. My wife never said never. She asked a sharper question: have you honestly tried?
Notice what that question did. It didn't take the option off the table. It put a small, finite test in front of it. Not forever. Not a new identity. A week or two of real effort, and then decide.
Here's what I want you to know about the honest way: it isn't harder because it's nobler. It's harder because it produces information the shortcut skips. A week of full effort tells you what you're actually capable of, and you can't buy that answer. You can only earn it.
So before your next shortcut, run the compromise. Give the honest way one real week. If you fail with a full effort, take the shortcut with a clear conscience — you'll have honestly tried.
But you might not fail. I didn't.
Sometimes the thing we call the hard way is simply the honest way.
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