Why is life so hard? This is a question I ask when life is challenging. I also ask why is life so easy, for me at least, sometimes when it is going too smoothly. A simple, and for many adequate, answer to both questions is that it just is. That is to say life is sometimes hard, sometimes easy, often somewhere in-between and that is just how things go. It follows that we may likely have more challenge when life is more challenging, but then why does challenge occur at times when life seems “too easy?”
Whether we are waiting for the other shoe to drop or we struggle with why we are so blessed while others are having such a hard time, it can sometimes seem more difficult for us when everything is easy or calm. Again, the answer of “this is just how life is” will often be the result of inquiry, but it is so frequently unsatisfactory in helping us process the question of why we deserve the good or bad that we are currently experiencing. For me this is where our personal power of managing our perceptions can be utilized to increase our well-being and manage life stress.
To start, one might step back and manage the perception of the perception (meta enough for you yet). That is to say, if I perceive my current experience as bad, wrong, or even just unwanted this will set the tone for how I address or manage my experience. The cliché of viewing all experience as a lesson may be overused and often lacking as a full explanation, but I feel that much of that comes from stopping with this statement and not exploring deeper.
This deeper exploration might look like uncovering the reasons contributing to our perception of a situation. These reasons are often connected to how we were raised, our values, what we have experienced in life, how we understand and interpret pain and pleasure, and a myriad of other factors that go into making us who we are.
So if this is just who we are then what can we do about it? I believe we have a huge influence on who we are and many of the places in our lives where we may feel stuck or are acting in unhealthy ways may need some understanding before we can choose to do things that help us move or act in healthier ways.
When something, a thought-pattern, a behavior, or even a belief, has an understandable origin we can move to another level and investigate how it served or still serves us in some way. The hoped for outcome being that through acknowledgement some form of healing occurs that allows a new capacity for change. This change would inherently include a change in one’s perception of past, present, or future events.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
-William Shakespeare, Hamlet
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