There is a question as old as adulthood itself. Love or bread? The warm hand to hold, or the steady paycheck? The heart that makes you feel alive, or the security that lets you sleep at night?
For years, I thought I had to choose. Everyone told me so. Pick passion and risk instability. Pick safety and risk emptiness. There is no third option. Life is a trade‑off.
Then I started hangboarding. And slowly, quietly, the board taught me something that no advice column ever had.
What Is a Hangboard?
For the unfamiliar: a hangboard is a block of hardwood—maple, beech, or sometimes bamboo—mounted to a wall. It has shallow edges of different depths, measured in millimeters, and small pockets for one, two, three, or four fingers. You grab an edge, lift your feet, and hold on. That is the whole activity.
No music. No movement. No partner. Just you, gravity, and a piece of wood.
It sounds like nothing. But it teaches you everything about how to hold on when everything in you wants to let go.
The False Choice
When people say "love or bread," they usually mean: romance or financial security. The person who makes your heart race, or the job that pays the bills. The uncertain future with someone you cannot live without, or the comfortable present with someone you can live with.
But here is the lie hidden inside that question. It assumes that love and bread live in different rooms. That you cannot have both. That choosing one means losing the other forever.
Life is rarely that clean.
I have friends who chose bread. They married the safe partner, took the stable job, bought the sensible house. Some are genuinely content. Others spend their evenings staring at walls, wondering about the person they did not kiss.
I have friends who chose love. They followed their heart across oceans, into poverty, through breakups and makeups. Some built something beautiful. Others ended up broke, lonely, and asking themselves if passion was worth the price.
Neither group was wrong. Neither group was entirely right. They just made a choice based on who they were at that moment.
And that is the part we forget. Who you are at that moment is not who you will be forever.
What the Hangboard Knows
The climbing hangboard understands something about holding on that applies directly to this question.
When you first grab an edge, your fingers feel strong. The first five seconds are easy. But then fatigue sets in. Your forearms start to burn. Your breath shortens. Your brain starts inventing reasons to let go. This hurts. This is boring. You have nothing to prove.
In that moment, you face a choice that looks just like love or bread. Do I hold on for what I want? Or do I let go for what is comfortable?
Most people think hangboarding is about finger strength. It is not. It is about learning that holding on and letting go are not opposites. They are a rhythm.
You hold for ten seconds. Then you rest. Then you hold again. You do not choose once and live with that decision forever. You choose every single day. Sometimes every single second.
A Third Way
Here is what the hangboard taught me about love and bread.
The third way is not a compromise. It is not half‑love and half‑bread. It is timing.
There are seasons to hold on and seasons to let go. There are seasons to chase the risky love and seasons to build the quiet bread. There are seasons when you need the security of a steady job to heal from a broken heart. And there are seasons when you need the wildness of a passionate love to wake you up from a life that has become too safe.
You do not have to choose once and be done. You just have to choose today. And then choose again tomorrow.
The rock climbing hangboard does not ask you to love it forever. It asks you to show up for this set. This minute. This breath. Then rest. Then decide again.
How to Actually Decide
If you are standing at the crossroads of love and bread right now, here is what I have learned from thousands of hangs on a wooden edge.
First, stop asking which is better. That is the wrong question. Better does not exist. There is only what you need right now.
Second, listen to your body, not just your head. Your head will make pro‑con lists forever. Your body knows when you are holding on too tight or letting go too soon.
Third, make a small experiment instead of a lifetime vow. Choose love for three months. Or choose bread for six months. See what happens. You are allowed to change your mind. Changing your mind is not failure. It is data.
What I Chose
I cannot tell you what to choose. But I can tell you what I learned.
I learned that I do not have to be the same person at 40 that I was at 25. I chased love when I was young. I chased bread when I was tired. Neither was a mistake. Both were exactly what I needed at that time.
I also learned that the hangboard is not a metaphor for holding on forever. It is a metaphor for holding on right now. And letting go right now. And trusting that you will know what to do when the next edge appears.
Love and bread are not enemies. They are just different holds on the same wall. Some days you need one. Some days the other. Some days you need to rest with open hands, holding neither.
That is not indecision. That is wisdom.
The Only Question That Matters
So stop asking yourself "love or bread?" as if the answer must last a lifetime.
Ask yourself instead: What do I need to hold onto today? And what am I allowed to let go of for now?
Then chalk your fingers. Lift your feet. Hang for as long as you can. Drop when you need to. Rest. And then show up again tomorrow.
The board does not keep score. Neither should you.
Now go choose. Not forever. Just for today. That is more than enough.