"Nothing that matter comes easy, nothing that's easy really matters"

 

Searching for images to sketch, I came across a black and white photo of JFK and Robbie Kennedy. 

The intensity and seriousness of these two brothers carrying the fate of a nation on their shoulders, grabbed my attention. JFK is speaking and Robert is listening...obviously something is discussed which matters very much to both of them.

(This sketch is made using graphite.)

Channel surfing on the TV I briefly watched a few minutes of a documentary on Rick Springfield and while doing so heard him say this: "Nothing that matters comes easy, and nothing that's easy really matters."

The opening line in the book "The Road Less Travelled" by M. Scott Peck is: "Life is difficult".

When I first read it I thought: "Finally, someone who has the courage to say it like it is."

What a relief, someone gets it.

Easy. Now there's a word that seem to be used an awful lot.

It can be attached to many things:  nice-and-easy, easy does it, easy come easy go, easy money, easy way out, easy going, easy living, the easy life, et cetera. What is so good about something being easy?

“... it is the greatest of all mistakes to begin life with the expectation that it is going to be easy, or with the wish to have it so.”   (Lucy Larcom)

If something comes easily perhaps we also let it go that way?

When I read the words "Life is difficult" I realised that it offered a different perspective; If life is difficult, then when life is not difficult, those moments are not to be taken for granted, rather, they are to be treasured.

Difficulties overcome, do we not value them somehow more than those easily solved?

Hidden within difficulties are the potentials for opportunities to discover a number of different solutions.

Often when we find a solution to something straight away, we may find ourselves not investigating if perhaps there may be other possible solutions, perhaps even more suitable.

While driving to a gallery with a friend, I asked him why he was taking the long way around.

"Because I always take this route" he answered.

 "Why?" I asked to which he answered: "Because it's easier to just take the route I am used to even if it takes a bit longer."

Why do we often seek the path that offers the least resistance?

Some say we do so to conserve our energy, which may have been relevant in the old days when we were hunters and gatherers, but since nowadays most of us just go to the shops to buy whatever we need, what are we conserving our energy for?

It may be easier to buy take-away-food than to cook a meal from scratch, it may be easier to take the car than to walk to the corner shop, it may be easier to sms/facebook/email a friend than to arrange a meeting in person, it may be easier to adopt others opinions than to form one's own, it may be easier to do things the same way over and over rather than to figure out new ways, and so on, but perhaps in doing so we may lose valuable experiences?

“If you expect life to be easy, challenges will seem difficult. If you accept that challenges may occur, life will be easier.” (Rob Liano) 

Some of us are born into more difficult lives than others (wars, poverty, addictions, sicknesses, dysfunctional families, et cetera) and through necessity have to quickly learn how do deal with such the best way we can. Some of us grow strong from it, some of us less so, depending on our perspective.

If we view difficulties as opportunities for growth and valuable life experiences, then somehow those difficulties often become easier to cope with.

"It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties." (Abigail Adams)

"Nothing that matter comes easy, nothing that's easy really matters"  but as to what that "matter" is, is up to each of us to ascertain.