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How Can I Do This With Ease?
Believing you deserve not to struggle
A close friend of mine used to ask, with a twinkle, “Why do you always add bends to straight roads?”
We were teenagers, and I preferred making things hard for myself, whatever was more complicated and punishing. Anything other than high standards and self depreciation felt like cutting corners. And I didn’t approve of cutting corners. So I’d bristle something back, and he’d laugh harder.
He had an extraordinary mind, a name fit for a Viking and an attitude, but being 5 feet and quirky, this just meant he was bullied, hard. In many ways, life hadn’t been easy, like the time a landslide took their house down a slope in the middle of the night. He never made much fuss, and I can picture the brisk exit he made with his parents, already quite amused by the absurdity of it.
He chose ease whenever he could, but not for the sake of escaping challenge. When the bullying was at its worst, he began going to the gym and worked on his posture. He was different, and he embraced it unapologetically.
He died when we were in our early twenties. I still hear that chuckle though, and wonder what he’d say if he could see me now. I still add bends. But I ask myself often, how can I do this with ease?
