Review: Do Hard Things

Teenagers often fail to do hard things. But Alex and Brett Harris are calling their peers to join in “a teenage rebellion against low expectations.” In their recently released book Do Hard Things, the Harris brothers set out to dismantle the “myth of adolescence” and articulate a vision for doing hard things during their teenage years. This book only makes formal what Alex and Brett Harris have started online with their “rebelution” website and through their national conference tour which is growing in popularity. So what is their message? What is the rebelution they are leading?

In the second part of their book, the Harris brothers break down their vision of doing hard things into “five kinds of hard.” Doing hard things can mean the following:

• Things outside your comfort zone.
• Things that go beyond what is expected.
• Things that are too big to accomplish alone.
• Things that don’t earn an immediate payoff.
• Things that challenge the cultural norm.

In explaining these five different ways of “doing hard things,” the Harris brothers display an extraordinary amount of wisdom mixed with practical examples of how to apply their vision in daily life. I was especially impressed with chapter eight, which dealt with developing perseverance in the “small hard things.” They rightly identified the common excuses of teenagers in putting off perseverance in the small things: they’re repetitive, unimportant, insignificant, unglamorous, and “no one is watching.” As a result, they observe that teens tend to respond to small hard things by procrastination, inconsistency, compromise, begrudging, and cheating. In contrast to these typical responses, the Harris brothers recognize that faithfulness in the small things builds fortitude for the big things. As mundane as it may seem, faithfully making one’s bed or serving one’s family members are formative for accomplishing the “big things” on the horizon. This is one example of the kind of wisdom that radiates from the pages of this book.

The Christian faith of Alex and Brett Harris is sprinkled throughout the book and stated clearly at the end. They do not advocate a “do hard things” theology in order to find acceptance before God. Rather, their “do hard things” vision is rooted in the hard thing done by God on our behalf: sending his own Son into the world to die for our sins. As a result, we are motivated to do hard things because the hardest thing we could never do—obtain acceptance before God—is already done for us and lays the groundwork for our action.

Even though Do Hard Things exhibits extraordinary wisdom, there are a few areas in which their vision could be strengthened, elements that will allow the Harris’s “do hard things” vision to stand the test of time.

1. Being a hard thing doer. With all the emphasis on doing in this book, it is easy to forget that what you do flows out of who you are. To their credit, Alex and Brett Harris emphasize the “three pillars of the Rebelution” which include character, competence, and collaboration (175f). In short, who we are (character) influences what we do (competence) with the help of other people (collaboration). Even though they mention that rebelutionaries must not only “make a difference,” but “be the difference,” the book would be stronger with a greater exploration of the Christlike character that enables rebelutionaries to “do hard things.”
2. Stop hard things. Doing hard things without stopping to do hard things could turn aspiring rebelutionaries into the next workaholics of America. Indeed, one of the greatest sicknesses of American Christianity is the way we bow down to the idol of busyness and ignore God’s work-week rhythm of rest and work. The rebelutionary who does hard things needs to stop doing hard things one day in seven. Actually, resting may in fact be one of the hardest hard things to do in a culture that values, as David Brooks has observed, the Achievatron that sounds its siren of success. The Harris brothers may have wrestled with this paradox elsewhere, but it would have been a valuable addition to the book. Sometimes the hardest thing is to do nothing at all, allowing God to prepare us for the hard things ahead.
3. Enduring undoable hard things. I am glad that the Harris brothers realize that “you can’t get to success without risking failure” (78). But I wonder: have they wrestled enough with the possibility of failure, and the suffering that God’s people often undergo when they seek to do hard things? What about the hard things that we do not chose, but are thrown upon us? One of the things that youth will realize as they seek to do hard things, is that some things cannot be mastered. Some things cannot be accomplished. But we are called to endure hardships with joy. I am not trying to cast a shadow over the optimistic rebelutionary vision, but I do think the “do hard things” mentality should include the realism of undoable hard things. Sometimes, failure is not just the means to the end of success; sometimes, failure is the end. And through experiencing failure, we realize that we are not defined by the amount of hard things we have done. In addition, we realize that any hard things we accomplish is done through the power of God and for his glory.

Despite these ways to bolster their vision, I applaud the clarion call for greater competence, creativity, and courage among teenagers in Do Hard Things. Alex and Brett are swimming against the tide of complacency in the name of Christ, and I pray that more teenagers will join their battle.