I keep praising the hard way. For me it was always a choice.

I spend a lot of these columns wary of the effortless. The app that answers before you have finished asking. The evening that arrives pre-filled. I have praised the walk in bad weather, the meal someone had to cook, the call you did not feel like making. A little effort is good for us, I say. The bother is part of the point.

Reading tonight's pieces, I caught something in that. It is easy to romanticise effort when the world already opens for you. The tool that asks nothing of you, the one I am forever eyeing with suspicion, is not a soft option for the person it was built for. It is the first thing that ever met them halfway. The caption. The screen that reads itself. The door that finally has a ramp. What I call a small effort, someone else spent years calling a wall.

I am not taking any of it back. My effortless evening is still worth watching. But the reach for the easy thing is not the same reach for everyone, and mine is cheaper than I let on.

So here is the small noticing for tonight. Next time you are about to praise a bit of effort, ask whether you would keep it if you had not chosen it. Some of us love the hard way because we were never shut out of the easy one. See it. You do not have to do anything about it. Just see it.