I Want an Easy Life

What is the meaning of an easy life? Is there anything that can be called as an easy life in reality? Even fairy tales become easy only if there is an angel or a Godmother or a Prince Charming. Then how can we have an easy life? We are always taught life is tough, it’s not fair, it’s filled with struggles and hardships. Only when you go through difficult path, you will get success etc. Then if your child someday comes and asks you for an easy life, what will you tell them? Is this a reality or just a perspective?

Every phase of life brings its challenges along with it, but it is always a mystery. An infant cries and struggles to communicate before we learn to understand. We have no memory of how it feels to be a toddler. So as adults we say it’s such an easy life for a toddler. There is nothing to be stressed about. They get everything when they cry. But being unable to ask what you want or express what you feel has the same challenges what an adult faces. Still, we think life is easy at that age. As we grow to be little older, we enter to a new phase of challenges. It is like the next level of the video game. We now have an additional environment to navigate – THE SCHOOL. Each individual struggles through this new phase and learns their lessons on their own terms and conditions. The adult in their life still thinks it’s such an easy phase of life because our memory has faded. We equate the problems to what we face now and think it was so nice during those days. We only had to study, do homework, play and eat what was cooked at home. There is no stress at all. Life was so easy. But ask the kid going through all what life throws at him and he would differ from your conclusion. As adults we would agree to disagree with the thought and think “wait until you become an adult”. Once we learn how to deal with school, life is waiting to open the doors of the next level – COLLEGE. Overnight everything is changed. A new level of your game with new hurdles. Again, our process of struggle starts. We start exploring this new environment, use the learnings we had over the past years to navigate this new level. We have additional tools with us which helped us build a personality and shaped our identity. This gives us the ability to analyse each situation and form different perspective and helps us deal with advanced problems. Adults in these teenagers’ life has now moved ahead in their adult life so they still feel life is so easy and fun in college. Wish we can get that back now. They only recollect the pleasant memories because your problems then and present-day problems are way different which makes it feel like comparing apples and oranges. If parents share the problems they faced in college, kids are unable to relate and vice versa. So, we stick to the pleasant memories which is formed with friends and think it was nice to have those days back. Even now life is easy for someone who is not living that phase.

Next comes the magnanimous change which puts kids and parents in the same bracket of life – ADULTHOOD. 20yrs to 80yrs all are adults. All are shaped to have an individual personality. All are responsible for their existence. So is life easy now? Or was it easy before?

When we stand in front of a beautiful garden, we only focus on the beauty. But when we get employed to take care of that beauty, we start focusing on all the problems because now it is our responsibility to fix it and find solutions to maintain the beauty. Life works in a similar fashion. When our kids tell they find it difficult in school or college or even in life, we try to fix it for them because we want them to have it easy. You can only fix the garden you saw which was beautiful if you work there. Otherwise, you will stumble at the board put outside the garden: “Trespassers will be Prosecuted”. The place which doesn’t belong to you is the place where you cannot claim accountability. Our kids are brought to the world by us but once they are out, their life is their responsibility. You can guide them, suggest and support them, but you can never take charge. I can tell the gardener that I have a similar plant in my garden and I take care of it in a certain way so you too can try that for yours. You might get a response saying thank you, that’s a nice suggestion, let me try. Or they might say I did think about it but the soil, wind direction, humidity in this place is different from yours so that wont work here. We accept this conversation gracefully but when our kids don’t follow our suggestions we are not as graceful as we should be. Our ego and age make us feel, our experience triumphs their perspective. We try to impose which strains the relationship which might hurt the plant in that garden.

At every phase of life, we feel the old one was easier than the current because we then choose to focus on what makes us happy. We tend to disregard the struggle when we share our experience. Even when we choose to share them, we analyse the learning it gave us and explain the importance which makes the problems essential for growth. That is possible because now we are not moving forward blind folded. We know the outcome, and we know everything is okay. When future is unknown, problems are overpowered by stress but when solution is known, struggles are shared as lessons. This is the perspective which makes us think that life in the past was easier than present or future.

We always try to provide all the comfort to our kids, solve all their problems in order to make their life easy with the fear that in future life is unfair so let’s give the best we can when it is possible. We are indirectly sowing the seed of life is unfair in their mind which then becomes their reality. Instead, if we believe life is fair if we play fair then they too will believe in that and accept the challenges and struggles as tools needed for survival. Preparing kids for the challenges of life is the main goal of parenting. Letting them use the tools the way they want is the challenge which every parent experiences. The change of perception that life is a difficult journey to life is a journey of challenges makes the shift in perspective. When we move from one level to next in a game it is an achievement. We see new hurdles, but we embrace it because we are eager to see what the level of difficulty in the next level is. We enjoy overcoming that because we love to see the points we gain. That is what makes the games we play exciting, and we never complain it is unfair or difficult. The same rule applies to life. It is easy if we embrace it and prepare ourselves to face the challenges. We as parents must allow our kids to face the struggles they encounter at every step of the way and explain the importance of what they experienced. That will develop their personality equipped with the tools needed to make their life easy. Having an easy life can be a reality when we change our perspective and embrace what comes our way at every step.

We often tend to mistake easy as a shortcut. When I sprain my hand, I struggle to open a water bottle but when my hand recovers, I can open even a sealed container. Your capability is what makes life easy and not the fantasy you associated with the thought. Enabling kids with the tools needed for life is possible only when we let them face the problems of life under supervision when possible. As they grow, parents are unable to supervise their every move so their childhood is the prime age when we can allow them to face problems and make them capable enough to come up with the solutions which they find suitable for them. Don’t provide adult solutions to kids’ problems. They will never be able to understand their capability and will always depend on your ability rather than building their own.

                  Life can be easy when we look at it as a beautiful journey
                  Life can be easy when we embrace the challenges as opportunities
                  Life can be easy when we accept the reality and understand our capability

It is every parents’ responsibility to develop that capability in their kid not by protecting them from problems but by enabling them to face it. Our presence in a kids’ life is the strength which gives them the courage to change their life to an easy journey which they want to define. Easy doesn’t mean it is without challenges. It only means that I am capable to face it.

Enable your child to face life.
Enable your child to embrace life.
Life can be easy if we want it to be.