All jobs suck.
Embrace it!
There is a phrase widely used throughout the military, particularly in special operations and high-performance environments:
“Embrace the suck.”
At first glance, it sounds crude, negative, or even cynical. But in practice, it is actually deeply motivating.
It means that when things get hard (physically, mentally, emotionally) resisting reality wastes energy. Complaining wastes energy. Self-pity wastes energy. Once you are in the middle of something difficult, the fastest path through it is often acceptance, commitment, discipline, and attitude. You embrace the hardship. You lean into it. You move forward anyway. You do it for others. You do it for yourself. Whatever it takes. It is an extraordinarily powerful mindset.
That mentality has served me well throughout my life. In difficult workouts or during my time in the military. Even in business, parenting and long nights building a business. In periods of uncertainty, exhaustion, pressure, and responsibility. Sometimes there is simply work to be done. And yet, I think we unintentionally misuse this idea when it comes to careers. Because while resilience matters, we should probably spend more time helping people determine what kind of hardship they are actually built to sustain before they commit years of their lives, massive debt loads, emotional energy, and personal identity to a particular path.
One of the greatest lies modern society tells young people is that there are “good careers” that feel endlessly fulfilling and “bad careers” that feel difficult or unpleasant. That is nonsense. All jobs suck sometimes. Every single one.
The emergency room physician who saves lives also sees trauma, death, addiction, bureaucracy, lawsuits, exhaustion, and emotional burnout.
The entrepreneur enjoys freedom and upside but also carries risk, uncertainty, payroll pressure, sleepless nights, and constant responsibility.
The HVAC technician spends summers in unbearable heat inside cramped attics.
The airline pilot misses holidays, family events, and sleep.
The software engineer spends hours debugging invisible problems no one else understands.
The roofer works in brutal weather.
The nurse deals with bodily fluids, chaos, grief, and impossible staffing shortages.
The attorney handles conflict for a living.
The police officer sees society at its worst.
The mechanic destroys his knuckles fixing problems created by other people who ignored maintenance for years.
All jobs contain friction. All meaningful work contains sacrifice. All careers contain moments that absolutely suck. PERIOD.
However, the problem is not that hardship exists. The problem is that we rarely help people understand the type of hardship attached to a profession before they commit to it. And that matters enormously. One person would rather crawl through spider webs under a house performing a foundation inspection than work a trauma shift in a hospital emergency room. Another person would rather deal with blood, stress, and emergency medicine than spend ten minutes in a crawl space under a damp house. Neither person is wrong. They are simply wired differently. One person prefers tangible physical discomfort over emotional trauma. Another prefers emotional intensity over confined spaces and grime.
This distinction is critical, yet our educational and workforce systems barely discuss it. Instead, we often guide people using prestige, income projections, social status, family pressure, or abstract ideas about “success.” Very little attention is paid to lived reality.
What does the work actually feel like on a Tuesday morning after five years?
What type of stress does it create?
What kind of people thrive in it?
What parts of the work drain you?
What parts energize you despite being difficult?
These are far more important questions than many people realize because the goal is not finding a career that never sucks. That career does not exist. The goal is finding a form of struggle that aligns with your temperament, values, personality, and wiring well enough that the difficult parts still feel meaningful. That is a very different pursuit. Work is still work. Responsibility is still responsibility. Difficulty never fully disappears.
But, there is an enormous difference between suffering through work that fundamentally misaligns with who you are and enduring hardship in pursuit of something that fits you deeply. One creates resentment while the other often creates pride, growth, resilience, mastery, and purpose. We should stop pretending the objective is comfort. The real objective is alignment. When people find the kind of “suck” they are built to embrace, work may still be hard but it becomes sustainable, meaningful, and often deeply rewarding. And in a society increasingly struggling with burnout, disengagement, anxiety, career dissatisfaction, and workforce instability, that distinction matters more than ever.