Everyone’s reality is different. However, there are some realities that are true for all of life.

1. Life Is Difficult
Somehow people seem to believe that life is supposed to be easy. This is particularly a problem in America today. We expect a smooth easy road to success. We expect our lives to be hassle free. We expect the government to solve our problems. We expect to get the prize without having to pay the price. That is not reality! Life is hard.

In Life’s Greatest Lessons, Hal Urban writes,
Once we accept the fact that life is hard, we begin to grow. We begin to understand that every problem is also an opportunity. It is then that we dig down and discover what we’re made of. We begin to accept the challenges of life. Instead of letting our hardships defeat us, we welcome them as a test of character. We use them as a means of rising to the occasion.

At the same time, we need to understand that society bombards us daily with messages that are quite the opposite. To begin with, technology has provided us with push-button living. We can open the garage door, cook dinner, wash the dishes, record our favorite TV program, and pay our bills by simply pushing the right buttons. In addition, we’re told over and over that there’s a quick and easy way to do just about everything. Within just the past few days, I’ve read or heard that you can lose a hundred pounds, learn to speak a foreign language fluently, become a hot new radio personality, get a contractor’s license, and make a million dollars in real estate. You can do all of these in a matter of days, and with little or no effort. And pigs can fly.

Those ads are all around us because the people in advertising and marketing have a good understanding of human behavior. They know that most people don’t accept life as hard and will continue to look for the quick and easy way instead.

There is no quick and easy way. Nothing worth having in life comes without effort. That is why psychiatrist M. Scott Peck begins his book The Road Less Traveled with the words, “Life is difficult.” He wants to set the stage for everything else he communicates in the book. If we don’t understand and accept the truth that life is difficult, then we set ourselves up for failure and we won’t learn.

2. Life Is Difficult for Everyone
Even if we are willing to concede that life is difficult for most people, deep down inside many of us secretly hope somehow that this truth won’t apply to us. I’m sorry to say it isn’t so. No one escapes life’s problems, failures, and losses. If we are to make progress, we must do so through life’s difficulties. Or as poet Ralph Waldo Emerson stated it, “The walking of Man is falling forwards.”

“The walking of Man is falling forwards.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life isn’t easy and it isn’t fair. I’ve had unfair things happen to me. I bet you have, too. I’ve made mistakes, made a fool of myself, hurt people I’ve loved, and experienced crushing disappointments. I bet you have, too. We cannot avoid life’s difficulties. We shouldn’t even try. Why? Because the people who succeed in life don’t try to escape pain, loss, or unfairness. They just learn to face those things, accept them, and move ahead in the face of them. That’s my goal. It should also be yours.

3. Life Is More Difficult for Some Than for Others
In a favorite Peanuts comic strip, the woeful Charlie Brown pours his heart out to Lucy, who is positioned in her five-cents psychiatric booth. When he tells her that he’s confused about life and where he’s going, she says. “Life is like a deck chair. On the cruise ship of life, some people place their chairs facing the rear of the ship so they can see where they’ve been. Other people face their chairs forward; they want to see where they’re going.” Then Lucy asks, “Which way is your deck chair facing?” Charlie’s reply: “I’ve never been able to get one unfolded.”

Let’s face it: life is more difficult for some than it is for others. The playing field is not level. You may have faced more and greater difficulties in life than I have. You may have faced fewer. Your life right now may feel like clear sailing. Or it may feel like rough waters. And comparing our lives to others ultimately isn’t that productive. Life isn’t fair, and we shouldn’t expect it to be. The sooner we face that reality, the better we are going to be at facing whatever is coming toward us.

Excerpt from Sometimes You Win & Sometimes You Learn by John Maxwell

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