If You Want to Live an Easy Life, Live It the Hard Way
Why looking for the easy way will only make your life harder and miserable
Once, a beautiful lark bird was living by the riverside. One morning, the lark was chirping a melodious jumble when a farmer passed by. The bird saw the farmer and was curious to know what he was carrying in a box in his hand.
The bird asked the farmer, “What do you have in the box you are carrying?”
The farmer said that he had worms. He didn’t know that the bird loved worms. The lark bird was curious and asked where the farmer was taking the worms.
“I’m taking the worms to the market to trade them for feathers,” the farmer answered. The bird was interested in the worms and flew next to the farmer to strike a deal with him.
The lark said, “Why don’t you give me that box of worms in exchange for a feather, instead of going to the market.”
The farmer agreed. He gave the worms to the lark, and the lark plucked a feather and gave it to him in return.
The next day, the same thing happened. The lark plucked another feather in return for worms from the farmer. It happened again the day after, and on and on until a day came that the lark had no more feathers.
Now the lark bird could no longer fly and hunt for worms. It became ugly and weak from the cold, and very soon it died.
You’re the one who makes it harder
From the story above, we could see that what the lark thought was an easy way to get food, turned out to be the tougher way, after all.
Isn’t the same thing true in our lives? How many times we turn a blind eye to wrongdoing, choose the short and easy route over the wise and longer route — only to find out that we regret it later?
We often look for the easy way of a situation that only causes more difficulties in our lives. We want instant answers and look for one-minute solutions to everything.
Why is that?
A neuroscience study shows that we are hard-wired to take the easy way and follow the path of least resistance. No matter how silly it sounds, as human beings, we are biased towards perceiving anything challenging to be less appealing.
“Our brain tricks us into believing the low-hanging fruit really is the ripest.” — Nobuhiro Hagura
Unfortunately for us, if there’s one thing we can count on, it’s that we’ll always take the easy route when it’s available, even if our conscience tells us to do the opposite. It’s a normal response from our first instinct.
But if it keeps happening, this way of thinking leads to disappointment. It makes you feel miserable because you think that life has somehow done you wrong — when you’re the one who’s making it harder.
Your thoughts and expectations are out of line with reality. You think there is an easy way when the reality is there are no quick fixes to almost everything in life. And that’s just not how it works in personal development.
We all take the occasional shortcut in life. But taking shortcuts may eventually create bad habits and increase risk exposure. It may begin innocently enough, but it can quickly become extremely detrimental to ourselves and our surroundings.
We could change and modify our actions and decisions through deliberate cognitive strategies. However, it will only happen if we want to reinforce our belief systems and really put in the work to do so.
Get to the root of it
In science and engineering, there is a problem-solving method called the “root-cause analysis”. It’s a powerful tool used for identifying the root causes of faults or problems.
One way to do it is by using the “5 Whys” technique. Basically, the technique is we ask “Why?” five (or more) times to determine the root cause of a problem. Each answer forms the basis of the next question.
Here’s a simple example. Let’s say your car is not starting.
Then you ask the 5 Whys:
- Why isn’t my car starting? — The battery is dead. (First why)
- Why did the battery die? — The alternator is not functioning. (Second why)
- Why doesn’t it work? — The alternator belt has broken. (Third why)
- Why did it break? — The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced. (Fourth why)
- Why wasn’t it replaced? — I didn’t maintain my car properly according to the recommended service schedule. (Fifth why, and this is the root cause of the problem)
You see, it’s difficult and time-consuming to find the right solution by looking for the root cause of the problem. If you want to choose the easy way from the example above, well, just call for a tow truck — problem solved.
But it would only fix the problem temporarily. The core problem would remain and might even cause more problems in the future.
It also applies in each situation we face in life. We instinctively look for the most immediate solution without checking if it’s the right solution.
For example: If your partner is upset → buy her ice cream.
Would a Marshfield farm chocoholic heaven ice cream solve the problem? Maybe. Would the same problem happen again in the future? Most likely.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t buy your partner an ice cream, a boba drink, or whatever she likes. Maybe your partner is just a whiny-nagging difficult girlfriend, and for that case, perhaps the easy way is the best solution for everyone involved.
But what I’m saying is, if you truly cared about your partner — or your relationship — you wouldn’t just buy a piece of ice cream and stopped there acting as if the real problem didn’t exist.
You would continue to look for the root cause of the problem. You would find the actual why. It could be miss-communication, lack of appreciation, or even deeper problem such as an induced emotional trauma that your partner face in her workplace.
It may be hard and complicated. But the more time you spend understanding a problem, the more effective the resolution will be, and the more beneficial it is for you in the long run.
If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions. — Albert Einstein
Live it the hard way
Now, let me ask you:
- What happens if we stop looking for simple solutions in life?
- What happens if we seek courage and strength to overcome obstacles?
- What happens if we focus on achieving our goals, completing our task (no matter how hard it is), and keep going within new constraints?
The way I see it, it will develop our problem-solving skills, it will make us become more aware of our thoughts and emotions, it will improve the quality of our lives and our well-being, it will make us stand out — and make our lives easier for the long-term. Finally, it will make us happier because we are living life as it is.
Life is hard, and there are no painless and easy solutions in life. But paradoxically, once we truly understand and accept the hardness of life wisely and responsibly; we’ll realize that life is no longer difficult.
If you want to live an easy life, the only way is to live it the hard way.
If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.
— Michelangelo