# Difficult

Difficult is an English language word. It is an adjective, meaning "hard to do" or "hard to carry out" or "hard to accomplish." It is a synonym for "hard" and "arduous."
The word difficult and its noun counterpart, difficulty, are derived from the Latin word difficilis ("hard"), formed irregularly from the prefix "dis-" ("not", "away from") and the base word facilis ("easy to do"). Difficult is a back-formation of difficulty. Both words were first recorded between 1350 and 1400.
Contrary to popular belief, "difficult" and "difficulty" are not negative words even though it often feels that way. Difficulty, if embraced properly, can result in the reward of personal growth and spiritual growth. Difficulties, or struggles, despite their apparent negativity, are necessary to growth and becoming a stronger person. No pain, no gain.

## Unexpected or unforeseen difficulties

Frustration, and sometimes disappointment, arise when a person experiences setbacks or difficulties to a level that is significantly higher than the person expected. Frustration can be quantified as follows: Frustration equals actual difficulty minus expected difficulty. In contexts using a geometric distribution, such as the number of trials one performs before the first success, especially in chance-based tasks, frustration instead equals the ratio of the number of trials to the expected number of trials. For example, the probability of getting a female starter Pokémon, such as a female Treecko, is 1/8 or 0.125. That means that, on average, one will make 8 resets before getting a female Treecko or a female Popplio. If it takes 25 resets, then F = 25 / 8 = 3.125. That's pretty damn unlucky! On the other hand, if it takes you 25 resets to get a shiny Treecko, you'll be feeling extremely lucky and delighted, as the probability of getting a shiny Pokémon is a meager 1/4096, and 25 is vastly smaller than 4096.
Difficulty, in a vacuum, does not necessarily cause frustration or disappointment. Instead, difficulty above one's expectations causes those feelings or emotions. Popular Pokémon YouTuber Michael Groth (a.k.a. MandJTV) is in harmony with the Pokémon fanbase as a whole when it comes to pet peeves in the video games of the franchise. Like most Pokémon fans, he hates immobilizing status conditions such as sleep, infatuation, confusion, and paralysis. Michael Groth hates the battle situation in which a weak Pokémon, which would otherwise be a piece of cake to defeat, can lengthen the battle by using luck-based strategies. In his own words: "The most annoying type of Pokémon to battle against is one that is weak and should be eliminated quickly but is able to delay its demise by using cheap, annoying, luck-based tactics." He hates Watchog due to his frustration whenever he battles one; in Pokémon Black and White, many in-game trainers use a Watchog, including Gym Leader Lenora and countless Team Plasma grunts. They can use "Hypnosis" to put your Pokémon to sleep, "Confuse Ray" to confuse your Pokémon, and use "Super Fang" to cut any Pokémon's health by 50%.
On March 9, 2022, Raymond Wang, 25, got extremely frustrated. At 2:45:10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (07:45:10 UTC), he found out that not one, not two, not three, but four of his favorite songs from 2017–19 had low ratings on Album of the Year. "Perfect" got only a 47% user score (130 user ratings). Seriously, how the fuck can a beautiful love song, filled with elaborate, lovely lines about long-term romance, dancing on the grass to favorite songs, and future plans about starting a family, get such a mediocre low rating? "I Don't Care", which was a huge hit in the summer of 2019, was one of Raymond's favorite songs that summer, but unfortunately, the world hates that song. The rating on that song tends to fluctuate between 24% and 27%. "Happier" by Marshmello and "High Hopes" by Panic at the Disco are also rated low. For the rest of the day, Ray had intense cognitive dissonance, confusion, and disappointment. Finally, after trying several songs he loved over the course of his twelve years of listening to pop music (since October 2010), he found that "Style" by Taylor Swift, which was his favorite song on the radio for most of 2015, got a 90% user rating. What an infuriating, insanity-inducing search mission that was!
Raymond's brother, Bryan, who is three years younger, has had several moments like that, too. On February 2, 2018, Bryan, who was 18 at the time, spent most of the hour between 4:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. EST in the frigid, midwinter cold, walking on the campus of Brandeis University. From 4:15 until 4:45, he was walking on campus while Dad was driving around. They exchanged phone calls to communicate their locations. Frustratingly enough, for the next 30 minutes, Bryan walked four circles around the campus without ever being in the same place, at the same time, as Dad's car. As the ordeal dragged on, Bryan grew increasingly more frustrated, not helped by the fact that Dad did not understand Bryan's descriptions to the fullest extents. When Bryan finally found Dad's car at 4:45 p.m., he kicked the side of the car very hard, forcefully opened the door, and angrily climbed inside. He yelled at Dad the entire way home, which took 25 minutes. Indeed, from a statistical point of view, Bryan was right to be frustrated: if two people or two objects circle the same area four times, there is a very high chance that, at one point or another, they would be in the same place at the same time. Statistically, this task should have taken far fewer attempts than it did.
Many Justin Bieber fans are frustrated because the Justice World Tour was postponed several times before being canceled altogether.
Ariel Castro kidnappings: When Amanda Berry left work on April 21, 2003, the night before her seventeenth birthday, it should have taken her only ten minutes to walk home. However, halfway home, she encountered Ariel Castro, who told her to get in his car with a fake promise of driving her home. Liar, liar, pants on fire! Ariel Castro drove her to his house on Seymour Avenue instead, where she was imprisoned against her will for ten years. Amanda Berry and her daughter Jocelyn, 6 at the time, returned home on May 6, 2013, after ten years and fifteen days in captivity.

## Usage in songs

* In the 2021 song "Stay" by Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber, during the second verse, Justin sings: "It's been difficult for me to trust."
* In Taylor Swift's 2008 song "Love Story", Taylor sings in the second chorus: "This love is difficult, but it's real / Don't be afraid, we'll make it out of this mess / It's a love story, baby, just say yes."