WHAT IF IT’S EASY?

Have you ever been strolling through life without too many issues, when that one person kicks your ass and throws you off course?

I was minding my own business, enjoying my turkey kabob at the eight-person table, tweezing fresh mojito mint out of my teeth, and listening to seven other crazy people talk about everything about nothing.

The conversation was light-hearted—an encouraging tale of traveling to Australia for holiday (because that’s how the Aussie’s say it), when I said I’m not sitting on a plane for 24 hours. My argument was if I can go that long without a cigarette, then I wouldn’t be a smoker. It was at that precise moment when my friend threw my world in to a firestorm.

A simple question, “What if it’s easy?”

Except, the question wasn’t as easy as digesting mojitos on a daily basis.

Her words were like a volcano erupting magma from the depths of middle earth. Her eyes were a blue haze of gray burning my retinas as I tried too hard to stop the intrusion on my soul, my essence, my vulnerability. I didn’t expect it. At that pivotal moment our souls connected. And I’m not talking about sexual prowess here. I’m sincerely speaking to human connection. That idea that you can see a person’s soul through the depth of their eyes.

She woke something beyond my comfort zone. I wasn’t prepared.

The question, what if it’s easy, was put on a loop, playing over and over in my mind. To me, it wasn’t a question for traveling to foreign lands, but the thought delved into the core of life’s basic despair. How many times do we reflect on our current situation, or a past one, and admit, it’s too hard. Life is hard?

I’d like to speak for all of us when I say, we spend too much time focusing on the obstacles, rather than the clearing. We wonder how to shake muck from our flip-flops without our toes getting dirty. Maybe we judge too much, over-analyzing a situation or conversation. We choose to take the hard road because frankly, I don’t think too many of us has figured out how to live in a state of happiness, rather than survival mode.

We’re so consumed with emotion and the hardships of simply living, we forget there are generous, joyous, and beautiful people in our lives sitting in the back row cheering us on.

So, next time the dark forces attempt to overwhelm your senses with negativity, look for the light of gratitude, throw on a pair of tap dancing shoes, and focus on the something you’ve never done before…because you never know—what if it’s easy!?!