Rule #7 – Life is Hard

For years I carried this statement around in my wallet:

Life is Difficult… This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult – once we truly understand and accept it – then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.
– Opening paragraph in Scott Peck’s Road Less Traveled (1978)

If Scott Peck is too heavy for you, consider what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis reportedly once said to a whining granddaughter: “If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.”

Don’t expect to reap if you ain’t willing to sow.  (Captured by Francois Millett — 1814-75 — in his painting “The Gleaners” above.)

So just accept it. Life is hard. And know that nothing makes it harder than waiting around hoping for it to get easier.

Onward,  Malcolm Gauld