Hard choices, Easy Life.
Recently, there has been so much talk around how young people are entitled and lazy. Parents and grandparents complain that in “my day”, things were different. That young people were respectful, hard working and active. There is even a famous quote about the youth of today that has been circulating for some time:
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
The interesting thing about this quote is it appears to be true. Modern children seem to have all these flaws and it makes us sad to read it. The big surprise is the year it was written and who wrote it. It was written by the philosopher Socrates between 470 and 399 B.C. Yes, the quote is almost 2,500 years old!
Socrates was not being a pessimist or complainer. He was merely stating what many thought of young people at the time.
The best part of the quote is you could substitute “people” for children, and it would be just as true. All of us love luxury and prefer it to hardship. Manners have become more relaxed and informal, we question authority as matter of course, elders are not as well respected as in the past and it is easier to lie on the couch than exercise.
The point is not to criticize people and make them feel bad. The point is that the quote suggests that we have become soft and unable to deal with uncertainty and difficulty in our lives. But there is a way to make ourselves better at dealing with these things.
Successful people have a simple way to deal with adversity. Their philosophy is:
“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”
What does this mean? It refers to taking the long view and making hard choices today so that the future will be easier.
Hard and Easy Choices
What is the difference between and hard and an easy choice?
A hard choice would be to wake up every morning early and exercise. The result would be that you are in better health and feel better. An easy choice would be to sleep in and do no physical activity. The result would be that your health might not be as good in the future.
A hard choice would be to take part of your income and invest it wisely for your retirement even if you are young and retirement is many years away. The result would be that you have an income in your retirement and that you can stop working if you wish and live on your investments. An easy choice would be to spend everything you make on things you like and invest nothing. The result would be having to live on less income than if you had invested. You might even have to continue to work in retirement if you do not have enough.
A hard choice would be to cook dinner every night and take some of it for lunch the next day. The result would be healthier food choices and spending less on food. You would feel better and have more money to do other things with. An easy choice would be to order take out at night and buy your lunch the next day. The result would be food choices that probably have more fat and salt than you would like and that are not necessarily good for your health. You would also be spending more money than if you cooked for yourself.
The More You Sweat in Peace, the Less You Bleed in War
General Norman Schwarzkopf was fond of saying: “The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.”
He was saying that making hard choices, like training hard and working on tactics would prepare you for more difficult circumstances in the future.
When you make hard choices, you develop discipline and toughness. The first time you wake up early to exercise, you probably would prefer to stay in your nice warm bed, but if you get up , the next day will be a little easier and you will develop a habit. You will create callouses not just on your hands but on your character, so that when you really encounter a tougher situation, you will be better able to handle it.
Make hard choices, and you will live an easier life.