When difficulties in life come - and they will - I always remind myself of the first paragraph in M. Scott Peck’s book, A Road Less Traveled.
“Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult — once we truly understand and accept it — then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters. Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. […] I know about this moaning because I have done my share. Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them?”
Someone once told me most people stop reading this book after they read the first sentence. Peck places a footnote at the bottom of the first page citing the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism, wherein the first noble truth is often translated to mean that life is suffering, and the awareness of that is wisdom.
When difficulties occur, I remind myself that this is baseline. And instead of feeling sorry for myself or breaking down, I try my best to solve the problem. To feel my feelings in the moment. To tangibly do what needs to be done. To walk through, not around. To be kind while doing it.
Life is difficult, friends. Not in a nihilistic depressing way, but in a deeply honest one.
Life is also beautiful and amazing. Not in a naive way, but in a deeply honest one as well. Leonard Cohen once said, “if you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.”
Tides rise and fall. And so do we, again and again. 🌊
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