It sounds like trivial insight, but at least in my experience many adults and even teachers have this "it's hard so it's ok to not want to do it" attitude towards math. And I think that is very detrimental.

Well, isn't that a summary of most things? Most things worth learning are hard, but many things not worth learning are also hard. So we have to prioritize what hard things are worth learning. Math is low on the list for many people for (I think) understandable reasons.