Which Button to Push?

Courage 10/3/2019

In 2005, Staples introduced the Easy Button. The idea: if you want something, it’s not that hard to get it. When it came to office supplies, Staples had it.

As technology continues to get better, things become easier. No more looking in the phone book, the encyclopedia, or on the map. If you need information, all you have to do is ask Google, Siri, Alexa, or any of the others out there. Life continues to get easier. We all have an easy button within arm’s reach. You can even choose to never leave your house again.

These days we expect everything to be easy. And when it time to do hard things, it is hard. And because our conditioning is to want it the easy way, why would ever choose to do the hard stuff?

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference. –Robert Frost

Every day we have a choice. We can choose easy or hard. Gymnastics coach Christopher Sommer put it well when he said, “If you want to be a stud later, you have to be a pud now.” Nobody wants to be pud at anything, but we all have to start somewhere. If we learn to do the hard things, they will become easier in the future and we will have a greater ability to do more hard things.

If we are always using the easy button to get through life, we will end up with a life unfulfilled and lacking substance. But if we have the courage to train for the hard things when life is easy, we may find ourselves stronger and more resilient to face the obstacles thrown before us.