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“Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage — it can be delightful.”
George Bernard Shaw from his book “Back to Methuselah.”
Life is complex. It is rarely straight forward. Each time we look around we find that things have been either subtly changed or intricately woven into a complex tapestry. Is it strange therefore to begin to wonder the reason for this apparent random upheaval of life? Life is a character building exercise and a spiritual means of growth and learning.
Former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, (1975 – 1983) coined the phrase “Life wasn’t meant to be easy” in 1983. Using only the first line made it sound somewhat unsympathetic, perhaps in keeping with the persona of Mr Fraser. As far as it goes, this simple statement is infuriating. Think about it for a moment. Such a simple statement of apparent fact says so much more. Each day we are faced with a multitude if decisions and situations which we have to solve in order to progress through our days.
If we accept the premise this simple statement provides we are accepting that, irrespective of what we do, life is going to be difficult. It has cemented into our sub conscious the probability that we have to fail at what we are doing, or if not fail, then we will have a really difficult time in achieving our goal. We “have” to struggle.
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“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” -Thornton Wilder
All of life, from its inception to its last hurrah, can be filled with challenges of one kind or another. This isn’t simply aimed at an individual or a select group of people either. It can also include each and every country on the planet. Can you envision what could happen if each country developed a mindset that “Life wasn’t meant to be easy?”
We see on a daily basis the armed conflicts on a global scale, the individual and group murders, brutal assaults and acts of cruelty and terror on a major and minor scale, and if we accept the premise of this simple statement, it could be the single, most heinous excuse for every unimaginable horror which could be perpetrated.
Yet, it need not be this way. “Life wasn’t meant to be easy” because “Life is easy”. As Shaw said, “but take courage — it can be delightful.” I can hear the sounds of derision even now. There is no-one breathing down our necks to make life difficult. There is no-one telling us we have to make decisions which will ensure life be will be a struggle day by day. It is true that there are horrendous events occurring each day. There are people dying as you read this, some in the most sickening manner which could be imagined. Does it have to be this way?
Do people have to be forced to live on the streets, to spend days and nights with little or no food or warmth? Do entire countries or factions need to spend their days and nights contemplating the destruction of anyone who has different ideas to theirs?
you are always in my heart
“You connect yourself to the viewer by sharing something that is inside of you that connects with something inside of him. All you have as your guide is that you know what moves you.” -Steven Brust
These questions can reduced to an even simpler, single question, “Does this person, or these people, these countries or factions, have the right or necessity to destroy anyone’s life? We all have an unassailable right to life, to make our own decisions and choose whether we will have a life of struggle, strife and woe or a life filled with blessings, light and ease.
It can most definitely be challenging and so it should be. Anything which we find too easy to obtain or secure, to earn or to simply be, is rarely valued. It seems that we need to feel that we have earned our right to have a sense of ease in our lives. In this, there may be some truth.
As a spirit in human form we choose what lessons we have come to this place, our home, planet earth, to learn and also how we are going to do this. There are many reasons why these lessons may be so ‘hard’. There is one school of thought which says that the harder the lesson the more we learn from it and the less time we have to spend earning our “credits” in the school of life. I’m not entirely convinced it can be as simple as this, but it does make a certain skewed logic.
Perhaps I need to have a logical reason for why things happen the way they do. The shooting down of a plane of innocent travellers. The continued conflicts around the globe which create arguments on a daily basis – the beginnings of the next conflagration.
I don’t have the answers to even the simple question of “Why is life not meant to be easy?” All I have is the sometimes tremulous belief that life is….life. In all its good and bad, the beauty and horror, it is as it is. Whether it is meant to be or not starts to become meaningless.
As George Bernard Shaw said, “Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage — it can be delightful.”
Yes, amidst the horror, “life can be delightful”. I’m happy with that.
May all your days be delightful.
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“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” -Elizabeth Kubler Ross
Blessings, Susan ♥
© Susan Jamieson, August 2014
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