Lou Gehrig: Make it Difficult
- 6 days ago
- 3 min read
Lou Gehrig played 2,130 straight games. Fifteen years without missing a single game. And he played through everything.
Concussions. Broken bones. Sprained ankles. You name it, he played through it.
The question is, how did he do it? How did he get the name "Iron Man"? How did he become one of the most durable athletes to ever grace this earth?
You can point to many factors: a love for the game, a toughness built from poverty, and a desire to give the fans what they deserve. You don't play fifteen straight years without any of those. But there's one trait, one thing Gehrig did, that stands out from the rest.
He pursued difficulty.
There's a story of Gehrig, who, when he went out fishing, preferred to use a light line to give the fish a fair fight. He liked to feel the tug of the line run up his arms and into his shoulders as he wrestled to bring in the catch.
When he went out fishing with a teammate one afternoon, Gehrig said on using a light line,
"Why not make it harder for yourself? It really challenges your endurance and skill."
That line says everything about Gehrig—not just how he fished, but how he lived. Gehrig could have chosen a heavier line and made it easier on himself. But Gehrig liked to work, liked to battle, liked to test himself and his abilities.
Much of life is about making things easier. How can we use less effort and get the same or better result? But sometimes, and maybe a lot of the time, you want to take the opposite approach. In a world obsessed with efficiency, where we’re constantly looking to optimize, hack, and automate, maybe the opposite has value.
Gehrig believed in making it harder. Not to suffer for suffering’s sake but to sharpen the tool of the self. To test your own edges. To earn the outcome. As David Goggins says, to callous the mind.
There’s even this funny little story from his time with the Yankees. The team had just installed cushions on the dugout bench, and when Gehrig saw them, he scoffed and refused to sit.
His manager asked, "What’s the matter with you?"
Gehrig’s answer?
"Nothing, only I get tired of sitting on cushions. Cushions in my car, cushions on the chairs at home—every place I go they have cushions."
He wasn’t trying to be dramatic. He was just wired that way. To resist comfort. To embrace effort. And to do things the hard way because the hard way makes you better.
That’s how he played. That’s how he lived. That’s how he strung together 2,130 consecutive games without taking a break.
Ease is important. The body can't be taxed all the time. But if you go too far in the other direction, if you try to optimize for efficiency, for effectiveness, sometimes you do more harm without realizing it.
So don't be afraid to choose the thin line, to skip the cushion, to make things just a little harder than they need to be.
Because efficiency is important, but so is difficulty.
Thanks for reading.
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