Life Isn't Meant to be Easy, for Any of Us

"The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life"

Jesus, Matt.7:14

"Life is Suffering"

Buddha, "Four Noble Truths" (c.500BC)

"Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful"

George Bernard Shaw, "Back to Methuselah (1921)" 

"Life is Difficult"

M.Scott Peck, "The Road Less Travelled (1983)"

There are many variations on these thoughts, from 'Love', 'Happiness', 'Relationship', 'Service' or 'Faith' - all can be difficult to do/be/achieve successfully. Further, life difficulty is universal - never think you are alone in what-ever your particular difficulty is.

Like most negative declarations, there is an implied call to look at the positive behind them. The call is to transcend the difficult, to accept and take personal responsibility of over-coming. M. Scott Peck puts it this way, "It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters". "Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them, or solve them?". Peck writes about the 'Disciplines', the tools for life's problem solving.

Be prepared to get you hands dirty. You need to dig-in a lot of manure to get a good crop of vegetables, or beautiful, scented flowers.

In the 'pursuit of happiness', all too often the emphasis is placed on the 'happiness' and not on the 'pursuit'. On assuming the result (happiness, etc) is your 'right' (without the pursuit, the struggles and the hard work), you open yourself to jealousy of those that have 'more' than you, and the perennial conflict of the 'haves' vs the 'have nots'. Further, you fall into the trap of singularity (MY happiness or lack there-of) and don't recognize the universality of life's difficulties. And as has happened throughout history, there is always a megalomaniac ready to feed their own ego and tell the 'have nots' that the 'haves' are the cause of all their problems or have 'stolen' from them. 

We are social animals, and the pursuit, the struggle, the hard work, is better as a shared activity. Life, love, happiness, relationship, service, faith are not meant to be solo achievements, but are best striven for, and enjoyed, in partnership, collectively, communally.

In these struggles and pursuits, 'nature' and 'nurture' (environment) play a big part. Some people find their pursuit 'easy', some find it hard due to environment or their birth-given (dis)abilities. This is why it is so important that our pursuits, struggles and problem solving are shared activities. Get expert professional help when needed. If we focus too much on environmental things that block our growth, we are often up against the immovable object which can lead to depression, or worse, giving up. By seeking assistance and sharing, we take our focus off the blockage and we have a better chance of creatively looking, possibly collectively, for work-arounds.

Whilst it can be helpful to be able to share with someone who has experienced the same issues as yourself, it is important to have a supporter that can lift you up. Too often, a 'support' group with poor leadership, ends up dragging all the group down.

If you do find the challenge 'easy', it just means that life has more/harder challenges for you, or better yet, to help someone else in their struggles.

It is also very important to NOT compare yourself to others. It's not a competition. Your happiness will be different from someone else's happiness. Your growth rate will be different from others.

Renowned neurosurgeon and CNN chief medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta has just published a new book, "Keep Sharp: Build a better brain at any age". The key points he makes are:-

• Good nutrition is critical, both food and what you 'feed' your brain, reading, art, music, conversation, debate;

• Exercises, both physical and mental exercises, are essential. Vary them, mix them up;

• Be creative and contemplative, with variety;

• Socialize, support and buildup one-another;

• Find and use external support, a mentor, a counselor, medical advice;
  

(In detail, there is nothing new, but the concepts are presented in an attractive, easy readable and understandable way).

In conclusion, to quote my mother, "Stop and smell the roses"! Don't get locked into focusing on a single outcome. Enjoy the journey, the pursuit: "It can be delightful"!

Stop and Small the Roses

Freedom without Discipline is Anarchy - Lest We Forget

WW-1

Great uncle Frank was an eager 19 year-old that signed up very early in the war. He was amongst the first wave that stormed ashore at ANZAC cove on the Dardenelles under intense gun fire from the Turkish positions on the cliffs. Somehow he survived that campaign and was amongst the final withdrawal. From there he was shipped to France and battled the bombardments, mustard gas and mud and snow of a couple of winters on the western front. Just two weeks before the end of the war, after almost 4 years of constant fighting, he was in a group that had a direct hit from a grenade and died instantly.

His older brother Bill was a more cautious, serious man, and signed up a year later. After achieving the rank of Sgt. Major in a training unit, he too got posted to the French western front. Again, during the last months of the war, he was out on patrol behind enemy lines, when he was hit in the leg by sniper fire. Unable to walk, he lay there not knowing his fate. Just before dawn, four German soldiers came up to him, picked him up and started carrying him toward the allied lines - there were deserting. They reached a village just as it came under German bombardment. They dropped Bill in a ditch and took cover themselves. One of his rescuers was killed. After they reached safety, Bill was repatriated to an English hospital, where his leg had to be amputated. I can just barely remember Uncle Bill, 35 years later in the early '50s, hobbling around with his crutch and empty trouser leg pinned up, a very sad TPI veteran.

WW2

My father was a quiet, thoughtful man. On enlistment, he was assigned to a field ambulance unit. But due to some bureaucratic mess-up, he ended up as a first-aid officer at a Brisbane enlistment unit, treating sunburn and blisters. But as the war in New Guinea progressed, he was transferred to the Army Hospital in Townsville. Here he attended the severely wounded evacuated from the fetid jungles of Kokoda and Lea etc. Apart from the variety of injuries, the constant was the dengy fever, the shitty dysentery and the night sweats and delirium of malaria. All too often he told me, after patching someone up and sending them back, in a month or two, they saw the same men back again. The "lucky" ones got sent home sans leg, arm or eye.

Lest we forget, not just those that paid the ultimate price, but the broken survivors that returned. 

WW-Covid

But the world is at war again, this time against an unseen enemy, the Covid-19 virus. There is no separation of soldier and civilian, we are all conscripted. But if Covid is to be defeated, we must have the discipline of soldiers. Could you imagine the soldiers on the Western Front, refusing to put masks on when the clouds of mustard gas swept across the battlefields, claiming it was their 'human right' to do what they like and not mask-up?

In "Free at Last - Covid 2nd Wave Crushed", I wrote of how Australia has fought this virus with fantastic results. After over 3 months of severe lock-down, the city of Melbourne (pop. 5M) has reached 13 days straight of ZERO new cases and ZERO deaths. Empty Covid hospital wards are being closed down. We are carefully opening up to a new Covid-normal.

In the "Land of the free", all too many interpret this to mean "The Land of the ME!". The freedom we have due to the sacrifice of our soldiers in two world wars, is a freedom from foreign interference, a freedom to govern ourselves. But self government requires civil responsibility and the discipline to abide by the laws made by our majority-appointed governments. Like our soldiers, disciplined responsibility to each other must take precedence over personal "Rights".