For a long time, I believed that doing difficult things gave life meaning. I still believe something close to that, but I would phrase it more carefully now: do the difficult thing when it is also the correct thing.
Difficulty by itself is not a virtue. People can suffer inside work that is badly designed, politically protected or no longer useful. Endurance matters, but endurance without judgment can become avoidance. The point is not to choose pain. The point is to choose a problem worthy of sustained effort.
Why meaningful work often feels difficult
Important problems resist simple answers. Manufacturing is a good example. A factory is technical, organisational and human at the same time. Improving it means confronting constraints that do not disappear because a presentation is convincing. The work becomes meaningful precisely because reality pushes back.
I have experienced this across countries and roles. Learning a new industrial culture is uncomfortable. Building a team from zero is uncomfortable. Admitting that a technically elegant solution does not work in operations is uncomfortable. Each experience removed a little certainty and added a little judgment.
The difficult path is valuable when it makes us more honest about reality and more useful to other people.
The test I try to apply
- Does the problem matter beyond my own status or comfort?
- Am I learning something that changes my ability to contribute?
- Can I name the person, process or organisation that becomes better if the work succeeds?
- Is the difficulty inherent to the problem, or have we created it through poor decisions?
These questions do not produce certainty. They help separate commitment from stubbornness. Sometimes the courageous decision is to persist. Sometimes it is to stop, change the method or leave behind an identity that no longer serves the work.
What this means for me
I am drawn to industrial AI because it sits inside this tension. The technology is moving quickly; the physical world is not. A useful product has to respect both. It requires ambition without fantasy and patience without complacency.
I do not know whether every difficult choice will be rewarded. That is not the promise. The promise is that choosing a worthy problem—and staying honest while working on it—creates a life I can recognise as my own.