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I heard a quote: “If you want a hard life, make easy decisions. If you want an easy life, make hard decisions.”

This resonated with me.

I found it easy to be a people pleaser, Go along with others, fit in, be who they wanted me to be, but the in the long run, this made life harder. I knew I was not being true to me, I knew I wasn’t being authentic, and it didn’t help create healthy relationships.

It’s been easy to focus on others. I’ve reached out to help, given people my time and energy, I’ve gone above and beyond to make their life easier. But what was the cost long term? I gave so much I didn’t have time or energy for myself. While focused on others, I didn’t really know myself, or grow as much as I could. It had an element of being inauthentic and affected the quality of my relationships.

It can feel easy to take a difficult life experience, when we feel hurt, angry, or upset and assign blame to someone or something else. Short term, it feels easy, but over time, it makes life harder. It takes work to go within myself, learn who I’ve been, admit my own mistakes. It’s takes reflection to see the way someone else is triggering me has a lot to do with me and less to do with them. But when I do, I bring more honesty and respect to myself and my relationships. I can only change what I am willing to look at in myself and if I’m willing to do that hard work, it makes my life easier.

It’s easy to find scapegoats and align with allies. I like to feel right and be validated and it’s easy to seek that outside myself. It feels harder to have empathy for someone I oppose. Every time though, when I’ve called myself out and looked to be open and understanding, I grow exponentially. When I hang on more gently to all beliefs and ideas and stay open, magical exchanges occur. If I know myself and choose what is right, I don’t need validation and I can see how more than one perspective can be right. It makes life easier.

I am spending a lot of time and energy doing work that feels hard right now. I’ve been going within, healing past trauma, breaking old patterns. This requires time and effort and a lot of humility to admit my mistakes and see my shortcomings. Using my strengths to expand myself, giving myself what I have not given myself before – it’s hard. Our culture focuses on the quick-fix, looking outside for what we need to give ourselves; short term ease with long term repercussions.

I already like how this is working for me. And I suspect the result of my effort, will be amazing.