Why does making things easier feel like I don't care enough?
Why taking shortcuts feels like proof you don't care enough
A few weeks ago, during the holiday chaos, I got an email from a reader that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
Her partner makes Christmas hampers for his family every year. Same tradition, same stress, same pattern. He spends weeks agonizing over what to include, dragging himself through crowded stores, coming home exhausted and irritable.
She watched it happen again this year. She’d suggested easier approaches: ordering online, simplifying the gifts, doing something different entirely.
He couldn’t. Because that would feel like he doesn’t care enough. Like he’s taking the easy way out.
This guilt shows up everywhere
It shows up when you use the dishwasher instead of hand-washing. When you order groceries online instead of going to the store. When you ask for help with something you “should” be able to handle yourself.
When you skip making homemade cookies for the bake sale and buy store-bought instead.
The rational part of your brain knows these things don’t matter. The dishes get clean. The groceries arrive. The kids eat the cookies.
But there’s this other part, quieter, meaner, that whispers: If it’s not hard, it doesn’t count. If you didn’t struggle, you didn’t earn it. If you made it easier for yourself, you’re selfish.
This is the special edition deluxe version of ADHD guilt. Where suffering is proof you care.
