Why Is Life So Hard?

Sometimes life really is hard. There is no need to explain that away.

People become ill. Relationships end. Money runs out. People we love die. Bodies hurt. Plans collapse. We lose jobs, homes, friendships, abilities, and sometimes entire versions of the future we thought we were going to have. There are periods when several of these things happen at once.

So when someone asks, Why is life so hard?, the answer cannot simply be: It isn't.

Sometimes it is.

But there may be another question worth asking:

What exactly is hard right now?

This can sound almost insensitive when we are overwhelmed, because at such times everything feels hard. But if we look carefully, something begins to separate. There is what is actually happening, and there is everything the mind is saying about what is happening.

Suppose we have lost our job. There is a real situation. Our income may have stopped, bills still need to be paid, and another job may need to be found. There may be immediate practical problems that require thought and action. None of that is imaginary.

But alongside it, thought may begin:

I'm a failure. I'll never find another job. What will people think of me? I should be much further ahead by now. What if I lose the house? My whole life is falling apart.

Some of these things may happen. Some may not. But the body can begin responding to all of them as though they were happening now. One difficult event has expanded into yesterday, tomorrow, our identity, other people's imagined opinions, and an entire predicted future.

This does not mean that thought created the original problem. It means that thought can make us live through much more than the problem that is actually here.

The same thing happens in smaller ways. We have a difficult conversation tomorrow, and we have it twenty times today. Someone said something hurtful yesterday, and we hear it again every time we remember it. Something went wrong years ago, and the mind still returns to the moment, trying to produce a different ending. We worry about losing someone we love and begin experiencing their absence while they are still sitting beside us.

Life contains enough difficulty without living through imagined difficulties as well.

This does not mean we should somehow force ourselves to "live in the present." That can become another demand: I shouldn't be worrying. I need to stay present. Why can't I just let this go? Now we have added failure at being present to whatever was already difficult.

Perhaps we can do something simpler. We can notice what is here. There may be fear, grief, physical pain, or a real problem that needs attention. And there may also be thoughts about what all of this means, how long it will last, why it should not be happening, what it says about us, and what else might go wrong. We do not have to deny any of it. We can simply begin to distinguish one from the other.

Then a useful question becomes possible:

What needs to be done now?

Sometimes the answer is very practical. Make the call. Go to the doctor. Have the conversation. Pay the bill. Ask for help. Leave the situation. Rest. Apologise. Say no.

Sometimes there is nothing we can do yet. Then perhaps the difficulty is not asking for a solution. Perhaps it is asking to be lived through. That may include sadness, uncertainty, anger, fear, or grief. These are not evidence that we are doing life badly. They are part of being human when something matters to us.

There is another way life can become hard. We carry an idea of how life should be. By this age I should have achieved more. My relationship should be different. My children should behave differently. My body should still work the way it used to. People should treat me fairly. Good things should last. People I love should not die.

Some of these wishes are deeply human. But reality does not consult our picture of how it should unfold, and the distance between what is happening and what we insist should be happening can become a source of suffering of its own.

This does not mean approving of everything that happens. If something can be changed, change may be exactly what is needed. But something that has already happened cannot be made not to have happened by resisting the fact that it did.

There is a strange simplicity in seeing this. Life can hurt. Life can be unfair. Life can ask more from us than we think we can give. And still, most of the time, we are not actually living our whole life at once. We are living this moment of it.

Perhaps there is a problem here. Then we meet this problem. Perhaps there is pain here. Then this is the pain that is here. Perhaps there is something to do. Then we do what we can.

Tomorrow will bring whatever tomorrow brings. We do not have to carry all of it today.

Life may still be hard. But perhaps it does not have to be harder than what is actually happening.