You Can Do The Hard Things

"Nothing worth having or doing in the world is worth having or doing unless it involves work, pain, or struggle... I've never envied a person who had it easy in their lives. I've admired a lot of folks who have had difficult lives and done so admirably."

Unfortunately, these wonderful, smart phrases can be used to explain away undesirable conditions such as "advanced aging," because advanced aging is frequently the result of not doing the difficult things, especially when it comes to our health.
We're continually tempted to pursue "the route of least resistance" in life because, well, it's the easiest and most often quickest option. Easy, on the other hand, does not equate to better or growth. The word "easy" means "lazy." Lazy also leads to sickness and "advanced-aging" when it comes to our health.

An Energy Exchange -
Have you ever acquired something of enduring significance in your life without exchanging something of value, energy, or money? Nothing of permanent value comes for free because everything is based on an energy exchange.
When we invest a little effort into accomplishing or obtaining something, we get back the same "small" value. Our ROI increases exponentially when we push the envelope and challenge ourselves to accomplish the tougher thing, to go beyond our present limits.

Lifting weights in the gym is an excellent example of this, as it is one of the most effective ways to sculpt our bodies and build our muscles. What is difficult today will become easier after a few repetitions. To get the benefits of stronger muscles, we must continue to push ourselves by adding greater weight to our workouts.
Without some form of stretch/pain, there is no gain in life. It's known as evolutionary growth, and all human emotional, mental, and physical problems have the greatest potential for development.

Rather than avoiding the "bad things," we should look for the "silver lining" within it and quit running away from a race we'll never win.
Perceptions are crucial.

The first step is to change our perceptions. The clear approach to addressing fear and removing its paralyzing effects is to see problems as opportunities for growth. Challenges increase our heart rate and increase our adrenaline production, but not in the same way as a "fight or flight" response would.

When confronted with a task, certain hormones are released; we become more concentrated and have easier access to our mental and physical faculties.

We've become weak as a species, both physically and metaphorically, since we frequently "take the easy way out." This explains why we're in the middle of a global health catastrophe right now.

We want to be healthier, but "lifting weights or finding time to go to the gym" is "too difficult."

We want to be healthier, but it's too difficult to give up the simple pleasures that suck up our time.

We want to be healthier, but it's "too difficult" to abandon our unhealthy eating habits in favor of nutrient-dense meals.

We want to eat healthier but don't have time to prepare and cook our own meals. It's too difficult, so we resort to "fast eats".. (the only thing fast about fast foods is how quickly they destroy our health).
We want to be healthy, but as a gift, not as a result of "hard work" and as a reward for changing our lifestyles.

We want to be healthier without exerting any "abundant effort."

Easy does not push the boundaries. That is not how life is designed to work. Life is designed to be a give-and-take system. You get out exactly what you put in. That's all there is to it.

Most individuals overlook an opportunity because it is clothed in overalls and appears to be labor.
(Thomas A. Edison)
By ignoring obstacles and continuing to take the easy route, we are sending very clear messages to our brains and bodies that we are content with our situation in life. Life comes to us in the same way it left us, and instead of opening the door to new possibilities or healing us from the inside out, it starts the process of sedentary decay.

The basic fact is that we are either moving ahead by addressing the "hard stuff" or we are silently moving backwards by staying in our safe zone.

Sacrifice is necessary for success in every endeavor. Giving up something in return for something else is the most common definition of sacrifice.
The "good" we're all looking for in life is brilliantly encapsulated in a desire to take on the "hard things" rather than avoiding the "easy ones." Our current health situation is the ideal illustration and motivation to start tackling the "tough stuff."

It's past time we ditched our "easy way" misconceptions about getting healthy in favor of some real growth "hard solutions," because we can't go forward or fully recover from any health crises, personal or global, unless we address the root causes. It's only a matter of time before another global health catastrophe resurfaces, ingeniously disguised as a "different virus or disease," if we don't focus on and solve the root causes.
"It's preferable to take a series of tiny steps in the right direction than to take a giant leap forward only to fall backward."