"I have decided to stop running from the hard things in life and start running toward them"
About this Quote
The pivot from "running from" to "running toward" is doing sneaky labor. It borrows the language of fitness and productivity culture, the same grammar that makes discipline feel achievable: you don't have to be fearless, you just have to show up and move. But it also smuggles in a moral claim. Avoidance isn't just unhelpful; it's a kind of self-betrayal. "Toward" suggests agency, even appetite - not merely enduring difficulty, but meeting it on purpose.
There's subtext, too, about the kind of hardship that is legible in mainstream media. For someone with structural safety nets, "hard things" often arrive as emotional and relational reckonings rather than material crisis. The quote sidesteps that disparity by staying abstract, inviting broad identification. That's why it travels: it offers a redemption arc without a confession, a declaration of growth that reads intimate while remaining carefully, televisually clean.
Quote Details
| Topic | Overcoming Obstacles |
|---|---|
| Source | Read All About It! (2008) by Jenna Bush (Hager) |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hager, Jenna Bush. (2026, January 26). I have decided to stop running from the hard things in life and start running toward them. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-have-decided-to-stop-running-from-the-hard-184574/
Chicago Style
Hager, Jenna Bush. "I have decided to stop running from the hard things in life and start running toward them." FixQuotes. January 26, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-have-decided-to-stop-running-from-the-hard-184574/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I have decided to stop running from the hard things in life and start running toward them." FixQuotes, 26 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-have-decided-to-stop-running-from-the-hard-184574/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2026.








