What's Wrong With Easy?
I'm a try-hard. Easy doesn't satisfy me, so I must find ways to constantly be challenged. Hence breaking free from the typecast. The typecast is too easy.
I have a confession to make: When I’m getting a massage, I’m trying to get a good massage.
When the masseuse hits the right spot, I lean or push or expand into it. I just need a little harder for a little longer. Lots of masseuses have had to tell me to relax.
Relaxing, coasting, going easy, vibing, those things aren’t really the natural state of my matter.
This is a wild acknowledgement, because most people say things like this to me, “You’re so chill.” And for some time, I believed them. But yeahhhh, uhhhh, next confession: it’s a fucking ruse. I break the lead on my pencils constantly because I am writing so hard. I’m sweating through every meal because I’m getting the spiciest thing on the menu. Training to failure? Bet. I won’t be able to sit on the toilet tomorrow without wincing, but right now, I can do squats as high as you can count.
I do not do easy.
So what’s wrong with easy?
I don’t think this applies across the board. Some people are very good at taking it easy. I aspire to be more like them everyday. They can ignore this message. But I suspect this will resonate on Substack with many of you, because you are aspiring writers, and being a writer is hard.
You have stopped learning.
I love learning new skills, be it physical or mental, and am pretty competitive (although still nice about it); hell, I even try really hard at therapy. I want to understand how the thing works and then get above-average at it.
Learning is good for you. There are countless studies – I’m sure you’ve heard about and/or read many of them; here’s an article summarizing – on the benefits of learning for the body and brain. It delays symptoms of dementia. It improves memory. It can even add to your lifespan. Learning a new skill increases your happiness, boosts your confidence and…
You never know what your body, mind, even soul can handle.
Learning allows you to understand your ability to grow, change, adapt.
Upon learning that I live in New York City, lots of people say things like, “I could never live there.” Well, you most certainly could. In fact, you would adapt so well to it — like myself — that it will be frustrating for you to be in a place where you can’t get a bagel delivered to your house at 4 am. And that silly convenience while override my annoyance at the incessant honking and getting jump scared by rats.
I enjoy pushing my limits. In times of crisis, this comes in handy. Yes, it’s tough now, but more often than not, you survive, maybe even thrive, and that teaches you valuable lessons.
You are phoning it in.
When things become easy, you can largely function on autopilot. This leads to boredom, distractibility, discontentment. I even noticed a quicker temper. In this state, you don’t have to prepare for the job, project, client, activity. You don’t have to get creative or innovate.
You just do the same thing, the same way, as you’ve always done and it works. Efficiency, except…
You are self-conscious.
You say the same things over and over and then wonder if it’s actually true. Did this way just work once as a fluke and now I’m treating it like a rule? There are always multiple ways of doing something. So why am I speaking with such confidence now? You’re a phony.
*Some of this is imposter syndrome. But it is also true that many people repeat processes because they have worked in the past. This does not mean they will work in the future, because all the variables cannot be controlled in the real world.
So here’s my conclusion (future variables unforeseen)...
Doing easy things doesn’t work for me. Whether my therapist would say this is a trauma response or whether it’s just a slightly annoying characteristic of my personality, I need to be constantly challenged to be happy.
Let’s talk about it…
What activities are supposed to be easy that you make hard?
What have you done recently that made you realize how strong, amazing, resilient your mind and/or body are?