"Is Life Hard?"
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssss.
Asking this question is like asking if the sky is blue during the day, and then explaining the processes that make it so when "yes" would have sufficed.
So you're not a "10" in every which way. But you're probably pretty spectacular in some way, and definitely good enough in most areas of life. If ever there were a time to stop beating yourself up for being human, it is now.
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Is it hard?
The Practice:
Accept difficulty.
Why?
Sometimes things are difficult. Your legs are tired and you still have to stay on your feet another hour at work. You love a child who's finding her independence through emotional distance from you. A long-term relationship could be losing its spark. It's finals week in college. You're trying to start a business and it's struggling. You've got a chronic health problem or a disability. Sometimes people don't appreciate your work. You're being discriminated against or otherwise treated unjustly. The body ages, sags, and grows weary.
Plus there are all the little hassles of everyday life. You're in an airport and can't get wifi (the injustice!). You're at home looking for the ice cream and someone ate the last of it. You're talking to your partner and realize he or she isn't really paying attention.
To observe that life contains unavoidable difficulty is not to minimize its impacts or to suggest that we should give up trying to make life better. But people - me included - add a lot of unnecessary frustration, anxiety, and self-criticism by resisting difficulty - often with an underlying attitude of "it shouldn't be this way."
Try the attitude of accepting difficulty instead of getting aggravated by it. It's a lot more peaceful.
How?
How In the moment, start by acknowledging any stress, weariness, frustration, anxiety, or pain. Open to the impact on your body and mind of whatever is difficult. Let the experience be whatever it is. Try to step back from it and observe it. Let it flow . . . flowing through you . . . and flowing on out the door.
For sure have self-compassion, the simple wish that a being not suffer applied to yourself. Say to yourself things like: ouch, this hurts, I wish it didn't . . . may I not suffer.
Then step back. See if there is any resistance to things being difficult, and see if you can let it go. Perhaps there's a belief deep down that life should be fulfilling, peaceful, buffered from pain. Keep softening around the inherent difficulties in living, dealing with them as best you can but not struggling with them. Notice that when you stop resisting a difficulty, it starts feeling less difficult.
As appropriate, try on the attitude: I signed up for this. Not to blame yourself for things that have happened to you or to discount your stress or weariness, but to establish yourself in a relationship of choice toward whatever is difficult. For example, stuck in traffic toward work, remind yourself that this is part of making a living; awakened yet again by your baby, feel in your body yet again your choosing to be a parent; under any conditions you could recognize again your ongoing choice to be alive. Say to yourself: this is difficult and that’s OK . . . I accept the difficulty here . . . yes, it’s difficult, and so what?
It's OK that things are difficult. That's part of what gives them their savor. Not all fulfilling experiences are grounded in some difficulty, but many are. Honor yourself for the hard things you're dealing with. And be aware of the things that are not difficult in your life, including the things that do support you.
In particular, keep up your personal practices during difficult times, such as exercise, meditation, moments of gratitude, protein at every meal, and doing things that nurture you. The more difficult your life, the more you need to take care of yourself.
Difficulties come and go. Meanwhile, your own good qualities and the good things in life persist and remain.
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and New York Times best-selling author. His books are available in 26 languages and include Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture. He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin and has numerous audio programs. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, he’s been an invited speaker at NASA, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, and other major universities, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, and NPR, and he offers the free Just One Thing newsletter with over 120,000 subscribers, plus the online Foundations of Well-Being program in positive neuroplasticity that anyone with financial need can do for free.
"Is Life Hard?"
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssssss.
Asking this question is like asking if the sky is blue during the day, and then explaining the processes that make it so when "yes" would have sufficed.
I really don't know if you're joking or not, but I can't believe how you can be so insentitive and uncaring like that. Sure, the question could've been answered with a simple "yes," but that isn't the point.
Whoever asked this question wasn't looking for a simple "yes" or "no," idiot; they were looking for an explanation, reasoning as to why life is the way it is.
Answering it with a simple "yes," may be good enough for you, but not for everybody else. So don't mock people just because they aren't you: an uncaring smart-alec who's obviously let life defeat him.
And now he's bitter and has to make fun of other people to make himself feel better. A lot of people on the Internet are like that, and it's sad.
But it's nothing I can change, so I don't care anymore. I'll happily so my best to ensure I live a good life, and I'm not going to have people like you drag me down anymore.
And that's the kind of shit I hate when it comes to the Internet: this guy took it upon himself to explain to people who were genuinely curious why life is difficult sometimes, and you come out of nowhere to demean everything he wrote.
At least what the guy wrote is something people can learn and understand more from. Nobody's going to understand anything from a simple "yes" or a "yeeeesss." Sure, life may be hard, but like I already wrote...
It's because of people like you. And I know you'll never reply, but I don't care. I've a lot to say to you, so expect more replies in the future.
And honestly, if you're just going to live your life being this way towards others, fucking commit suicide and be done with it.
That way you won't have to worry about life or it being hard ever again. And I won't have to waste my time getting all this frustration out on the Internet for all to see.
So, in conclusion, while this question could be answered with a simple "yes," the fact of the matter is the question's far more complex than that. This question and so many others out there can't be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" and we never go back to it afterwards. There has to be depth to it; explanation, elaboration...and considering the topic at hand here, I do believe it's obvious we should go into as much depth as we can.
It may be simple enough for you to answer it with a "yes" and think nothing of it afterwards like the uncaring person you are, but the same doesn't fly for everybody else in the world. And even though I know you won't...
I suggest you think about things like this the next time you choose to answer a question this complex with a simple "yes."
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