Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations Paperback – April 19, 2016

I'm 37 years old and just finished this book. It's one of many that I have started over the last 16 months, but the only one I have finished.I was inspired to read the book after listening to an audio about a father who watched his son's love for baseball, be cut short as he tried out for the High School team and was cut. This sent the son on the "normal" teenage path of bad choices, friends who were bad influences, and ultimately a party that changed his son's life.The father came home from a family outing that the young man, who was 14 at the time, decided not to go on. What he found once he got home, was the remains and evidence of what had been a wild party. With fire in his eyes, and not knowing what to do, he chased his son to his room, bent him over his knee and spanked him. Further discussion came with the price of not knowing what further consequences would be, but for the immediate future, he was grounded. Shortly after this experience, the father came across this book. The new consequence would be, his son could be ungrounded once he read the book and wrote a report about what he had learned from the book, not just a report about what the book was about. The young man has since started his own free enterprise business, leads others in the fight of free enterprise education, and continues to grow and inspire others his own age and is only 18.My oldest son is now 14 and he excels in school. He should only be in 8th grade, but is dual enrolled in both High School and College as a freshman, taking a handful of sophomore classes. He also has his own business as a subcontractor doing miscellaneous jobs to earn money. Because school comes so easy for him, he doesn't push himself to his limits or full potential. His spare time and all of his money is drowned in video games and he knows everything there is to know about the Zelda Universe.He recently asked my wife and I if he could skip a couple days of school to buy the newest game system and the newest Zelda game that came out the same day. Neither of us liked the idea, but we also knew how hard he had worked to save up the money to achieve his goal. At that point I made a deal with him. He could have the 2 days off of school if he agreed to read this book and write a 2 page report of what he learned from the book.I gave him this challenge a month ago, 02/02/17. My wife, in her infinite wisdom, 2 weeks later, challenged me too read and finish the book before he did. She thought it would be a good idea for me to be able to discuss what I'd learned from the book with him once we were both done reading it. He finished late last night, I finished this morning 03/01/17. I look forward to reading his report and discussing my goals and the hard things I plan on accomplishing this year. My hard things include significant weight loss, tripling my income, and taking my entire family (I'm a sole provider of a family of 9) on a 2 week long tropical getaway. 2017 will be my best year!

The two Twin boys who authored this book came out of a Portland, Oregon social background with what appears to be a deep Faith and Home School background.Alex and Brett Harris founded TheRebelution.com when they were sixteen-years-old. They had no idea it would soon become one of the most popular Christian teen websites on the Internet, with nearly 40 million page views from over 5 million unique visitors since 2007.One of the young heroes mentioned in the book is quoted with "I think our generation is sick of the world....they are sick if everything it has to offer. The only reason they're pursuing it is because that's all they're given....That's why our mission as a band is to wake up our generation." p. 208The book and their associated web presence look in many ways as an 'Amish' way of 'raising' children with concrete hard tasks and high expectations from a very early age. Rather than leaving our children and young people unable to do much real work, or have the courage to challenge their elders with boundless faith, energy and visions for a better world for all of us.It's a great book for almost any young age, Bible Study Groups and Youth Ministries. Certainly it's a terrific inspirational book for Home Schooling parents; it's unfortunate that its faith basis makes it ineligible for use in Pubic school environments.

"This is what we call the Rebelution: throwing off the shackles of lies and low expectations and returning our generation to a true and very exciting understanding of the teen years--not as a vacation from responsibility but as a launching pad for the rest of our lives."~Alex and Brett Harris~I pre-ordered several copies of this book, knowing it would be above average. It finally came, and indeed, it's not your everyday book written by teens. (Um, there aren't many of those, are there? Let's say it's not your everyday book, period.)In the book, the Harris twins offer an expanded, in-depth look at the rebelutionary concept of doing hard things. They talk about the myth of adolescence and the potential the teen years hold. They detail five kinds of Hard Things. And they show practical ways they can be accomplished. Much of the content is familiar to me since it's similar to articles on their blog, but it's great to have a book-length look at Doing Hard Things.It's challenging. Maybe especially to those of us already past our teen years who know we could be doing more, striving for bigger and better things, and we don't even have the excuse of being teenagers anymore. Of course, part of the whole point of the book is that being a teen is no excuse, and that they should and can rebel against low expectations. But the Do Hard Things mindset is something all Christians should have. It's just incredibly sensible, useful, fulfilling, and possible to do so at an early age.The stories are probably the most challenging parts of the book, since they are real-life (historical and modern) examples of teens doing real-life hard things from overcoming sickliness, buying and learning to use recording equipment, running political campaigns, beating procrastination (ouch!), designing top-quality survey programs, captaining ships, and more. Alex and Brett also do a consistent, thoughtful job of backing their points with Scripture, making their message all the more powerful.I'm not quite finished with the book. It's a good length. The cover design is really cool. It has an intro by Chuck Norris, if that interests anyone. (Half a year ago, I had no clue who this cool guy was who got all the jokes made about him..."You don't know who Chuck Norris is?!?!?" was usually followed by uninformative silence. Now I know he's a real person, not some mythical character, and I chiefly think he's cool because he's a Christian and admires the Harris twin's character and message.)These guys have a message that is changing lives because of its grounding in truth. I think God is using it to change mine, and only time and effort will tell where He'll take me next.

This is an impressive book all by itself, but more so for the fact that it was written by teenagers in this generation. Society needs to expect more from teenagers and kids in general. We humans are capable of much more than we can ever fathom.