I was listening to Dr. Laura the other day (yes, I am the only Democrat lesbian on the face of the planet who appreciates a lot of what she has to say).
Anyway, a nice man was calling in asking a question. She gave him a powerful, simple answer he didn’t like. His response was, “Yeah, it’s just that it’s so hard…“ And it got me thinking. We have things we say all the time that are cop-outs. “It’s hard” is one of them. It’s like it’s the Universal Agreement for letting each other off the hook.
I’m a big fan of compassion (read: BIG FAN), but I think we’ve let compassion get confused with being nice; somewhere along the way compassion has gone off-balance, or misunderstood at the least. In our efforts to be nice we buy into the Universal Agreement that “it’s-hard” is in fact a good, solid reason for not taking the action we think/know/feel is right to be taking. Doing something that seems hard (to us) builds character. Each time we buy into “it’s-hard,” we rob ourselves of the opportunity to build just a bit more character (enter my love of Dr. Laura).
By the way, I say “seems hard (to us)” because much of the time what you think is hard is seemingly only hard for you because of whatever issue or noise you may have about it. Take business development for example: for some it’s torture. Yet for others, like the fabulous Mark Silver, it’s not only easy, it’s fun. Some tasks feel more difficult for the majority of human beings: asking our in-laws to stay out of our child-rearing or asking an over-stressed mom hitting her kids in public if she needs a break would be two good examples. Even though those two situations may be very hard (difficult to navigate linguistically or emotionally) they may need to happen for the greater good of all involved. No matter the case or what our particular flavor of “hard” is, we let ourselves get away with something every time we use it as an excuse.
When we ignore what our gut is telling us is “the right thing to do” (i.e. silently walking by that woman who may need a 5-minute breather with her child or setting boundaries with our in-laws), not only do we do others a disservice, we get ourselves out of alignment by not honoring our inner knowing. And when we get out of alignment everything hurts. Said another way, our integrity gets “out,” like when we have a rib or back “out” and go see the chiropractor. We get off-balance, off center. The irony is, life really DOES feel hard then. And harder, and harder and harder–like running uphill on loose gravel thinking we really will get to the top.
However, when we go for it and take on what seems hard a couple things happen. One, other people get to benefit–-even if it feels uncomfortable at the time. Two, our integrity gets restored. When our integrity is restored, our lives just work–like running on our favorite path with our favorite people when we are in the best shape of our lives.
I invite you to look and listen to how ubiquitous the saying “it’s hard” is in our society. You’ll hear it on others and I promise… you’ll hear it on you. When you do, you are in luck… it’s your shiny call to action and your Big Opportunity to restore a little power… and, maybe make someone’s day.
Stay tuned for a future blogs on Love as a Choice AND sex, leadership and what they have in common.
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