Is Life Difficult?
Is Life Hard?
I remember reading M Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled when I was a young mother and wife. I loved the book so much I formed a book club around it. At our first meeting we read the first line of the book, “Life is difficult” and got caught up in discussion about it. I was surprised to learn that these classy, “together” women also found life difficult.
The verdict was unclear. Although we shared some issues, we also had different issues we were dealing with, ones that seemed less ‘difficult’ to those who had their own crosses, of various sizes, to bear.
Life seemed rife with challenges back then. It still is, but the difference is the length of road behind us. Now we know we can handle what life presents. Now we know that things get better, the bad times transition into the good times. Now we know how to walk the road.
I Don’t Believe Life Is A Schoolroom
I don’t believe life is a schoolroom – an experience to teach us something. To me that seems unfair and arbitrary. Who decides what I need to learn, who puts these challenges before me? What does this say about my free will, my ability to create my life, if I’m constantly spending time in “class” learning lessons that someone else sets before me. That doesn’t make sense to me.
I subscribe to a different school of thought. I believe we have enough natural challenges in our lives because of the imperfect childhoods we all survived. We picked up ideas about ourselves and our worlds which were faulty and which shape our lives to this day. It is never what happens to us that causes us pain. It is the meaning we assign to it that does. This is what needs to be understood and addressed.
I believe the “challenges” we face are nothing more than healing opportunities; chances to recognize and correct the errors in our worldviews, and in our view of ourselves. What makes life difficult is our unwillingness to face these challenges.
Have you worked to heal your childhood issues? What tools and techniques do you use? Do you believe life is difficult?
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