The Easy Life

Recently I heard a speaker mention that many of us have trouble dealing with the curse of an easy life. As I’ve contemplated on this concept I’ve determined that one of the top reasons why some people do not reach their full potential in life is because we have to deal with this curse, the curse of an easy life. That’s right, having an easy life can be a serious curse. In comparison to others, most of us are blessed and don’t want for basic necessities such as food to eat, clean water to drink, a place to sleep, or clothes to wear. When our basic necessities are so easily met and are far surpassed our drive to be our best dwindles.

An easy life can do a lot to impede us from reaching our full potential. Many of us do not fully push ourselves or extend ourselves because we are comfortable or perhaps don’t see the point. We have “enough” so we figure why bother? However, failing to stretch ourselves and reach our greatest potential does result in unnecessary hardships and stress as well as a lack of fulfillment, enjoyment, and satisfaction we could enjoy in this life. Settling, rather than achieving, limits our capability to be happy.

The easy life causes us to be lazy. Rather than working hard to better our situation, develop and learn new talents, and achieve goals, we oftentimes sit around and complain that life is hard and not fair. Hard work is always a necessary stepping stone to success and satisfaction.

A feeling of entitlement often comes into our hearts as a result of an easy life. We start to believe that people, the government, our family, our employer, or someone owes us something. We blame our problems on others and don’t take full ownership for our results. These feelings of entitlement often produce other negative feelings such as feeling disrespected, unappreciated, and used. The truth is, no one owes us anything and it is up to us to achieve whatever it is we hope to accomplish.

Finally, the curse of an easy life often destroys our creativity and resourcefulness. It is much harder to be motivated to be creative or resourceful or hardworking when things are pretty easy. Thus, our desire and ability to push and extend ourselves is diminished.

Therefore, we must find ways to overcome the curse of an easy life, to produce in ourselves a sense of discomfort and dissatisfaction that will create a sense of urgency that will inspire us to be more creative, more resourceful, more willing to sacrifice the present for the future. When we learn to do this, our ability to be successful and happy in life will be greatly enhanced and we will learn to live to our full potential.