The difference between Hardship and “Harden’ness”

Almost everyone is quite familiar with the saying, “life is hard”. No matter who you are there are hardships that you must face at some point in life. However, a word much less people would be familiar with is harden’ness; this is because harden’ness is not an official word but is derived from the word, “hardened”. Hardened is especially used by people residing in the Caribbean. But what exactly is the difference between Hardship and “Harden’ness”?

Not the same things

Hardship simply refers to the undergoing of suffering; hardened refers to someone who is unmoved by the suffering of others, sometimes even themselves. Where “hardnen’ness” comes into play is in relation to it being a noun (just like hardship). It is used to express a person’s natural preference to be so stubborn that they live by their beliefs. And they live by these beliefs to the point they refuse to listen to good advice.

Common sense would tell you that both hardship and harden’ness are not exactly things people should aspire towards. Yet, often when someone is experiencing one of the two conundrums the other is usually not far behind. After all, misery really does like company.

What you get from Harden’ness

What’s rather interesting is that hardnen’ness, though the less popular of the pair, is often the one that serves as a stepping stone for hardship to occur. Perhaps this is the reason it is the lesser known of the two evils; like a thief in the night it can easily sneak up on you and cause more suffering than hardship does. Yet, even while knowing this a lot of people would still choose to remain hardened.

So what exactly can you get from hardnen’ness? Truly, some good things can come out of being hardened. E.g. proving someone wrong for a greater good; achieving your dreams; and helping people in need who otherwise would not receive any assistance.

The problems arise, however, when you start thinking that you know everything. And that it’s your life to live and you don’t care for anyone to tell you how to live it. This sort of thinking can quickly lead you down a dark road; you will eventually experience hardships and could easily lose much that is valuable to you. Losses can include your job, all of your money, your relationships, your home and even your life.

Determining the difference

It’s easy to think you can tell the difference between hardships and hardnen’ness with little effort. Indeed this may be so at times. However, there is a way to determine with more accuracy. When you are experiencing hardships your emotions tend to be more along the lines of depression or frustration; when you are experiencing hardnen’ness you are more inclined to feel provocation.

While all emotions can be experienced in either situation, a hardened person who feels provoked is much more apathetic. The result of this is an increased likelihood of reckless and unstable actions.

Reasons for hardships

To put all of the above into clearer perspective, many people only experience unnecessary hardships in this life because they are prone to hardnen’ness. Someone gives them advice on how to live a better life, they ignore it; they are told they should save for retirement but prefer to “live it up” because they claim there’s only one life to live; they are cautioned that it’s wise to treat everyone they meet with kindness and they prefer to just cuss out anyone who does them wrong.

At the end of the day, some people genuinely undergo countless hardships due to circumstances beyond their control. A vast number of people, however, do not really have life as hard as they think they do. In fact, many willingly put themselves into challenging situations due to being hardened. Then they freely complain to everyone they meet that life is hard.

The choices people make

Very rarely (if ever) do people put guns to someone’s head and tell them to go make eight children. And this is while knowing they can barely afford to raise one. And very frequently do people take out loans for expensive cars or mortgages while knowing it would be too difficult to repay.

Contrasting situations in the latter but the wrong choices made in both cases. And this is what it’s really all about: choice! Life is hard, right? Yeah, but some people just prematurely and repeatedly make choices (even when they seem right) that affect them more than they realize.

But hey, if you’re one of the above people, at least no one gets to tell you what to do. It’s your life. Just don’t envy the lives of those who appear to have it much easier than you. Because life is hard … but the decisions you make with a hardened mind can easily make life much harder.