After 71 years of living with ADHD (and dyslexia), and more than four decades treating thousands of patients of all ages, I’ve learned that one of the most transformative and empowering discoveries a person with ADHD can make is finding his or her “right difficult.”
What Qualifies as a Right Difficult?
It must satisfy two criteria. First, it must be an activity that challenges us (it’s called “difficult” for a reason). If we’re not challenged, we get bored — and boredom is kryptonite for a person with ADHD. Second, it must be an activity that captivates us, that enchants us, and that is in our wheelhouse.
For many of us, it happens in childhood — we fall in love with an idea, with cars, with a person, with a sport, with a musical instrument, with a subject or an activity, with a figure in history, with a book, with a particular cuisine, with a place in nature, with an animal, with geometry or math proofs, with arguments or poetry, or with a single blade of saw grass — and it changes our life.
Our wheelhouse is the repository of all that we love — all the people, activities, ideas, bicycles, and bolts that combine to create our own particular garden of delights. What could be more sustaining and fulfilling in life than to have such a rich and fertile store?
Your right difficult, then, combines an element from your wheelhouse with enough difficulty to hold your attention and keep you in thrall for a lifetime — just as the best love affairs can do. Lucky are the people who find theirs early on. But it is never too late to find your right difficult.
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