A few weeks ago, I listened to Rebecca F. Kuang’s talk at Maltz Performing Arts Center. There, Kuang talked about the struggle of writer’s block and how important it was to feel that struggle. This deceivingly simple sentiment has lingered in my mind since. It would be trite to discuss society’s perception of AI and how it influences our understanding of hard work. Instead, I will bring up the Winter Olympics—particularly, Alysa Liu, the “breakout” star of the 2026 Winter Olympics and America’s newest sweetheart. I say “breakout” in quotes because, despite skating for a while, it was her gold-medal cinch that brought her to the forefront of the internet this year. It goes without saying that Liu is exceptional. However, I feel that the internet has a habit of portraying anyone who is successful as effortlessly so. The media has described Liu as effortless on the ice, gracefully bringing home the gold. Of course, I am not privy to her training, but I don’t doubt that it was grueling and a lot of hard work. Of course, the media won’t show that because it disrupts the image of lightness and gracefulness. This portrayal reflects how we like to imagine that good things come easily. I am not an Olympic figure skater, but I do argue that figure skating, much like any other creative medium, takes an incredible amount of concerted effort. It is not something done overnight or on a whim. In other words, it takes effort to be effortless.

This sentiment is applicable not only to figure skating, but to the arts as a whole. People expect the creation of art to be effortless, often because that is what is portrayed in the media: the eccentric painter sitting at the easel, placing paint marks on the canvas on a whim. On the contrary, art, like all other things in life, takes time and dedication. People complain about the lack of hand-drawn animations and how art was better in the “good old days,” but won’t even pick up a pencil themselves. It’s often easy as outsiders to judge creatives based on what they do. This is only amplified with the introduction of AI art (the phrase, if you ask me, being an oxymoron). I remember scrolling on social media and seeing calls to action to “bring back real animation.” Though the sentiment had its heart in the right place, something about the call to action being a 30-second video of compiled animated clips laid out over an audio didn’t sit right with me. Grouping all of these clips, each of which probably took an underpaid animator weeks to create frame-by-frame, into one, homologous clump in the name of “saving art” created the same issue of focusing on the product rather than the process. Perhaps to save art, we should first appreciate the effort it takes to produce.

Looking past art, the overall issue now is to bridge the space between the current condition and an effortless one. Effortlessness is just a small by-product of putting in lots of hard work and should not be treated as a goal. Of course, with AI on the rise, though, the false premonition of effortlessness becomes more prominent. But, for now, most good things in life are going to take some—if not a lot—of effort. The unfortunate truth is that trying to experience life “effortlessly” is not an experience of life at all. But, is this truth “unfortunate?” Being uncomfortable then growing and changing from that discomfort is not a bad thing, especially as college students. As students, we are given the grace to struggle. Yes, grades matter, but the overall academic environment is one that encourages struggle, which then encourages creation and growth. That isn’t to tell you to be miserable and not have fun, but to encourage you to also appreciate hard work.