Simple Does not Mean Easy

“Nothing In the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, and difficulty. I have never in my life envied a human being who has led an easy life” —Theodore Roosevelt.

Hard and easy are relative concepts to everyone. What is hard for one person may be easy for another. What is easy for one person may be hard for the other. Humans thrive when things are hard. Hardship forces evolution and us to find new solutions and new ways to become versions of ourselves. When things get easy we stop growing and adapting. When things are simple, we can see the plan easier. We know where we can attack. Many people think that simple can be a substitute for easy. Simple and easy are not synonyms and should not be used in replacement of one another.

What is simple can also be easy. What is easy can also be simple. They can be both for different reasons but they cannot be both for the same reasons. They do not mean the same thing. Easy always pertains to usage. The act of actually doing something. The effort that is required to do something is what “easy” signifies. Simplicity always pertains to the characteristics of the thing we are trying to use or do. “Simple” is the direction for what we are trying to do. Easy is the action while simple is the path for action.

A marathon course is normally very well-marked. There are numerous aid stations along the course. It is hard to get lost. Sometimes the track is 13.1 miles out and 13.1 miles back. The course is simple. Just because the course is simple does not mean it is easy. It takes months of preparation and many hours of training to be able to achieve your goals in a marathon. It has a simple direction but is an extremely hard task. In the difficulty is where we can grow the most.

People do not want an easy life, they want a simple life. We want to constantly push our boundaries and find ways to grow. We may want a simple understanding of how we can push ourselves but we do not want to live just an “easy” life. If we live an easy life we become complacent and live lives of convenience. Convenience grows out of living both a simple and easy life. Convenience can kill our drive and reason to live. Without challenge or a drive to evolve, we can slip away into the nothingness of going through a daily routine that never changes. Choose a simple over easy every day of the week. They are not the same thing.