MAKING IT LOOK EASY
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Life’s only meaning is the meaning we choose to give to it; for some, it is a life of ease and a longing for difficulty for its challenges, rewards and experiences that drives them. Conversely, or perhaps perversely, life’s only meaning for the rest of us is essentially the same; a life of difficulty and a longing for ease without its challenges, rewards and experiences that drives them.
Do you know this term: degree of difficulty?
I think it originated in how they judge athletes in sports – figure skating, diving, gymnastics, horse-jumping, for example – so the competitor’s score isn’t only for the quality of their performance but also based on how difficult (or easy) that dive, jump, or spin combo was to perform.
Now, consider that, depending on who is doing it, their experience, talent, and attitude – that everything is easy, and let’s face it, most things are. Why don’t we measure/judge the degree-of-easy rather than their degree-of-difficulty?
On things that are easy for us, we can be superb without having to try very hard (like governments re-announcing a good idea for the umpteenth time,) keeping our house in order, washing our car, being aware of current trends – all has a high degree of easy.
It’s easier by far for someone to succeed at something if they start from a position of competitive advantage – they have more money, education, capital, or acumen. Or, if they work harder, have been doing it longer, and have inherited advantages of place or influence, it’s easy to see why few things for them are a matter of degree of difficulty.
But life for most people is not about being an elite athlete, silver-spoon-born industrialist or professional – it’s about how we live our lives.
Difficult v. easy is sometimes unavoidable, but every day contains many chances and choices to make the actions of doing easy things into essential elements of us – that make up our package. Those things we find easy become larger and more valuable, and how we approach difficult things demonstrates character.
How far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go has more to do with those choices than whether something was difficult or easy.
Taking time to say hello to people we pass by, smiling more, and thinking the best of people without questioning their motives – easy!
Breathing without assistance – easy.
Walking without a cane or walker is easy.
Speaking your native language must be easy; they’ve grown up hearing and speaking it too.
Except for when easy things aren’t easy – looking the same as everyone in a crowd where everyone looks the same – easy-peasy; there is nothing to do but look the way you look, and wear whatever you choose.
When you are part of the mass, and everyone looks the same, that’s simple to understand, unless you are one person who looks different, acts differently, has an unfamiliar language, skin colour, or attitude – and in a moment, easy becomes difficult, complicated – perhaps insurmountable, or deadly.
What is easy for me might require near-impossible effort or transformation for someone else; what might be so easy that I take it for granted like walking, speaking, or breathing – is life-altering or possibly life-threatening for someone else.
And when changes happen, those changes might happen to me or to you.
What I’m trying to point out here, in case I’m not being direct enough about it, is that depending on where you sit in life, on the planet, and mix of we-them, us-those who are different, citizens-immigrants, or of abled v. disabled, we live in a world filled with degrees of difficulty, and degrees of easy. One doesn’t eclipse the other, but sometimes the overlap gets confusing because both are important.
The value of our day, today or any other day, is measured only by one person. It’s never what the boss measures, voters assess, or business leaders value – because all the pomp, power, and prestige do not set those folks apart from the rest of us.
100 years ago, none of us existed, and 100 years from, we’ll be equal again in dust, in value, and having lived a life full of breathing, eating, mating, surviving our circumstances and being forgotten, and I mean completely forgotten forever. Sure, out of 8 billion, a handful makes it into the history books or impact with long-term life-altering consequences deserving a statue, medal, or building named for them – but they’re just as dead and gone as the rest of us.
So, what then can be the value of life?
Life is immensely complex if we see life through a lens of complexity and incredibly simple if we look at it plainly through the lens/eyes of the simplest and least complicated among us.
We are always in the middle. Others are younger, smarter, richer, stronger, important, and better looking too. Others are always older, dumber, poorer, weaker, less significant and unattractive.