"Life is hard and then you die?"

Is it really? If you listen to a lot of people they would try to convince you that it really is the case. "Times are hard", "I never have any luck", "It always happens to me", "Why can`t things be easier?" It`s interesting how we all want life to be easier. We want to minimise the difficulties, sidestep the challenges, avoid the problems that life seems to keep throwing at us, when the truth of the matter is that it is those self same challenges and problems that keep us alive. 

The paradox is that we yearn for the things that would speed up our demise. We create products to automate as many things as possible so we have to do less physical work so our underused muscles begin to atrophy. Even when we go to the gym, we have to drive there and then try to park as close to the door as possible. We want to eliminate stressing our brains too much with demanding problems that we can`t instantly fix, not realising that it is actually good for our brains to be used and stretched. We inadvertently want to rob ourselves of the huge satisfaction we derive from conquering a huge mental or physical challenge.

We hanker after the easy life not realising that we`ve probably already got it.

After all, "hard" and "easy" are both relative concepts aren`t they? Wasn`t Abraham Lincoln right when he said,

"People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be"

If you are going through a "hard" time at the moment just recognise you are going "through" it.  You will come out the other side.Nothing lasts forever. Lao Tzu in the classic Tao te Ching reminds  us of the ebb and flow of life:-
"There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger".
There is a time for everything and nothing lasts forever. You need to remind yourself that "this too shall pass".
Why not reframe these situations by believing that life is made up of two things - good times and lessons.

When we are going through the "lessons" it might ease them by being grateful for the good times? And remember the only people who will never have bad times are already six feet under.

I vividly remember travelling through Tanzania and seeing the poorest
 of people and yet for some weird reason they were  all smiling and
 laughing. Maybe we need to temper our perspective of life with a healthy
 dose of gratitude? If you want to create a paradigm shift in your attitude,
watch this:-

                                                                      

 What do you think?