Easy or Meaningful?

Do you want your life to be easy, or do you want it to be meaningful?

As I was eating breakfast this morning it struck me that this is one of the most fundamentally important questions I think any person can answer. I think a lot of people go through life trying to avoid pain, trying to be happy, and trying to stay out of trouble. It makes sense when you put it that way, right? What's wrong with that?

I don't think there's anything wrong with those things in and of themselves, but I think that they suck as life goals. The problem is, you can chase happiness for years, try your hardest to avoid pain, but you won't be able to, and in the meantime you'll have missed out on a lot of wonderful things at best. At worst, you'll have made some very bad mistakes.

Anything worthwhile is difficult. Relationships take work. Big dreams require risk, and sometimes risk leads to "failure". But the funny thing is, if you determine once and for all that you're ok with pain, disappointment, and difficulty in pursuit of the meaningful and beautiful, you start to realize that the difficulties that go along with it aren't really so terrible. It's like taking a shot, it hurts a lot less of you accept that it's going to hurt and relax about it.

Some conversations are hard to have. Some decisions are hard to make. I'm not trying to make light of that. But hiding from those things, or trying to distract yourself from them, won't magically make them fade away. And while you're trying your hardest to avoid them, you hurt people, and you hurt yourself.

I want my life to mean something, and I'm willing to take some bruises if that's what it costs. What about you?