When I hear somebody sigh, “Life is hard”, I am always tempted to ask, “Compared to what?”
Sydney Harris
Compared to what? What do you possibly compare your life to? How are you measuring your struggles and mistakes? Against who are you measuring them? Against what set of circumstances.
It seems that millions, if not billions of people, in every generation, master the art of sighing. It comes natural to all of us. It is easy. It is the easiest thing to reach and the hardest thing to let go of. But you have to.
There is no success or happiness in any human endeavour without the sigh.
You can only compare your life to your own life, yourself to yourself. Time, and your dream of where you want to be is all that you’ve got to make a proper assessment. Everything else is nothing more than a set of unreliable and misunderstood variables. Impossible to really see and understand and so to compare our efforts or what we want out of life is simply foolishness.
Life is hard. Living is not easy but aren’t we better of asking if its worth it. Aren’t we better off looking at the end result or the dream fulfilled, than all the moments of toil. Besides, if you’re not working towards something. If you’re not spending your precious time on earth building something, connecting and making the world a better place, what are you wasting your energy on?
Complaining? Comparing? Beating yourself up because you don’t think you’re good enough?
Being human makes you good enough. Choosing to live a meaningful life makes you good enough. It doesn’t matter what you came into the world with. It doesn’t matter what physical or mental burdens you were given. It doesn’t matter where you were born, or how rich you are. Ok, I’m not foolish, some things are easier than others, but they are not more meaningful. You will find the same amount of unhappy rich people in every country in the world. You will will the same proportion of happy people who have very little, in every country in the world. What makes the happy, is what they carry on the inside. What makes them happy is their ability to offer a smile instead of a sigh.
I am not sure what the calorie expenditure is for a sigh or a laugh, but I sure know which one gives life and which one takes life away.
You’re not hard done by. You’ve got shit to deal with. You’ve got real struggles and real set backs. You have real addictions, and a long road ahead. But life isn’t hard. Life is life. You don’t control the circumstances that got you to this point or the bad choices you may have made along the way. What you truly control is what you are going to do with the rest of your life.
Choose wisely.
You can either sigh and look back or smile and look forward.
But no matter what you choose, know that it is foolish to say life is hard and do nothing about it.
