• Wanting An Easy Life.

Michael Azgour – Snapshots from a Train [2015]Gandalf’s Gallery. Flickr.

“I don’t know that an easy life is really all that easy.”

Craig D. Lounsbrough

It is easy to assume, when we take a quick mental snapshot of someone appearing to be having a good life, that their days on earth are always like that…. happy, relaxed, trouble-free. Suspended in time, such mental images may never change; the subjects are preserved forever experiencing life as constantly joyful.

If we use a camera, these pictures represent moments that are truly frozen in perpetuity…… in the image below, the smile will never fade, the sun will always shine and the beautiful, lustrous, reflective bubbles will never burst…..

Yet can life ever be as ‘easy as pie?’ What would this even mean? (This phrase has actually developed from ‘easy as eating pie.’) Might our happy, bright bubbles never burst and be preserved forever? Is it true that some people do have perfect lives?

Children Eating A Pie. Murillo. Wikimedia Commons.

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

Theodore Roosevelt

It is, indeed, true that we learn from the difficult times. An ‘easy’ life may actually create difficulties for us, in that we will not learn how to manage the inevitable painful experiences that do, at some time in life, befall us all.

Anything really good, big or small, requires hard work and problems to be solved. There is no easy way round this, no magic wand. It is a fantasy that answers and solutions will just fall into our lap, although many of us might wish that they would!

The Pleasure of Leisure – Fernand Leger. Wikioo.

“People are confused and unsure, they seek answers to guide them to joy, tranquillity, self-knowledge, salvation―but they also demand that it be easy to learn, that it require little or no effort, that results be quickly obtained.”

Erich Fromm

Unless we put considerable effort into every day, appreciating each moment of our lives, we may end up with regrets as we come to realise that everything is impermanent. In trying to have an ‘easy’ life, we may be actually avoiding thoughts of pain and death and making things more difficult in the process.

The existentialist psychotherapist Irvin Yalom felt that ‘the idea of death saves us.’ What he meant by this was that an awareness of the reality and unpredictability of death means that we often work at making our lives better and more meaningful whilst we have them:

“Learning to live well is learning to die well.”

Irvin Yalom.

He calls this process ‘mindfulness of being,’ an awakening. The more we live our life to the full, the less we will dread the inevitability of death. He quotes Zorba the Greek:

“Leave death nothing but a burnt out castle.”

David Hockney.  Ian Watching Television [1987] Gandalf’s Gallery. Flickr.

“When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.”

Eleanor Roosevelt

‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’

Mary Oliver.

The Path of Life – Jacek Malczewski. Wikioo

“Life is too short to endure an easy one”

P.S. Jagadeesh Kumar

Edward Steichen – The Lotus Screen [1909] Gandalf’s Gallery.

“An easy life is rarely meaningful and a meaningful life rarely easy.”

Oliver North

 “We often cause ourselves suffering by wanting only to live in a world of valleys, a world without struggle and difficulty, a world that is flat, plain, consistent.”

bell hooks

• The Human Condition.

Titian. Feast Of The Gods. Wikioo.

“The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the easy life of the gods would be a lifeless life.”

Hannah Arendt

The Human Condition is a term that encompasses the common needs, experiences and essentials of existence of every one of us. It refers to a state that universally affects all human beings on the planet.

We may be diverse in many ways, and our differences are highly important in society. At the same time, we are all deeply connected.

“Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition.”

Michel de Montaigne

For example, we are all born and we are all going to die. We will, every one of us, age, and we will all struggle with the limitations of our biology.

David Hockney – Beverly Hills Housewife [1966] Gandalf’s Gallery. Flickr.

“Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it’s true of everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace.”

James Baldwin

We are, all of us, rich or poor, beset by uncertainties in life. 

Heinrich Hoerle – Factory Worker [1926] Gandalf’s Gallery, Flickr.

Although our lives may be very different in many ways, the emotions of humanity are universal. For example, we all feel love, hate, anger, envy, fear, joy, pain and suffering.

• Not Wanting An Easy Life

Seville, the Dance – Joaquin Sorolla Y Bastida.1915. Wikioo.

“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.”

Leo Tolstoy

Working to achieve psychological and physical strength and wellness is the way to cope with the vicissitudes of life. So rather than wanting an easy life, perhaps we need to develop new ways of thinking which are focussed on developing the strength to cope with the reality that life is NOT easy for any of us.

“It is always the tough times that forge your character.”

 Manoj Arora, ‘Dream On.’

“Everyone is handed adversity in life. No one’s journey is easy. It’s how they handle it that makes people unique.”

Kevin Conroy

Kazimir Malevich – Floor Polishers [1911-12] Gandalf’s Gallery. Flickr.

Without the bumps in the road, life would be like a monotonous and uneventful highway, with no twists and turns, no interesting sights or experiences, no colourful scenic contrasts. This ‘easy journey’ would bring its own problems, for there would be little learning and a good deal of boredom.

Painful as it may be, without encountering such difficulties, we would not come to understand how to live, relate or function.

“Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”

Kahlil Gibran

Antonio Berni – Demonstration [1934]Gandalf’s Gallery. Flickr.

“Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.”

 Alain de Botton

Hard though the journey through life is, it certainly has its rewards. Without the promise of the recompense of enlightenment, clarity, joy, peace of mind and insight, people would not traverse the bumpy roads of life, whether these paths take us through study, research, business, relationships or psychotherapy.

Things may be difficult to begin with, but with hard work and application, they can become easier.

“Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”

 Rumi

Despite the uncertainty and pain , we all know that life can be full of interest and excitement:

“I think what makes people fascinating is conflict, it’s drama, it’s the human condition. Nobody wants to watch perfection.”

Nicolas Cage

We may be powerless to direct the universe, yet accepting this is somehow freeing. If we stop trying to control things, stop avoiding the hard aspects of life, wishing for ease and comfort all the time, we will discover that we are more able to live and enjoy our time on earth. It is through this acceptance of the human condition, that we are, paradoxically, freer to make the most of our lives in every way.

Life is an unpredictable blend of happiness and sadness, conflict and peace.

With this awareness, that despite not being easy, life can still hold beauty for us, we are helped to be strong and resilient enough to face the limitations of our human condition… so that one day we may pluck up the courage to deliberately choose the less easy way…

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I –

I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

Robert Frost

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© Linda Berman.