Another classic saying I heard somewhere along the way. What I’m talking about here is the easy way out. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people who have worked and worked and worked to take the easy way out when they could have just worked hard the normal way and achieved far better results. Let me say it as plain as I can: There is never an easy way out. And here’s the secret that nobody will tell you: even if there was, you will be less happy in the long run if you take it.
Focus on the journey, not the goal. The same thought is uttered throughout pretty much every religious and philosophical text that has ever been written. So why try so desperately to hurry to some perceived goal when it is the process of achieving that is most rewarding for us psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. We are made to work toward something.
Let’s look for a minute at some of the different shortcuts that are out there. I think the biggest shortcuts are drugs and alcohol. Now I realize that drugs and alcohol can become a part of a disease process, and I’m not talking about that per se. I’m talking about using drugs and alcohol as a shortcut that could possibly lead to the disease process down the road.
If you talk to people with drug or alcohol problems, you’ll find that many of them got started using these substances to treat some other problem they had. It goes something like this: Joe is very shy around girls, but desperately wants to talk to them. Joe tries but is rebuked time and again because he can barely string together a thought. Joe has a few drinks with his friends one night and finds out that it’s a little easier to talk to girls. In fact, he’s now downright fearless. Has Joe really solved his problem?
No. Not even close. What he’s done is created a crutch. Every time he’s in a social situation, his first thought will be to have a few drinks. The same could be true of any number of drugs, not just alcohol. In this case, Joe has jumped off the mountain to get to the bottom.
What Joe should have done was to first identify his real problem. What I described above is called social phobia in the psychiatric community, but it’s basically just extreme shyness. When Joe knows what his problem is, he can turn to friends, family, books, or professionals to find out how to treat the problem. Believe me, there is always a better way to treat a problem than by using illicit drugs or alcohol. (I know some of you are throwing up your hands, saying “this guy is a doctor, he prescribes drugs all the time. To that, my answer is this: using illicit drugs or alcohol to treat a psychiatric condition is about like using a nuclear weapon to get rid of the ants in your backyard.)
The short cut mentality doesn’t just apply to drugs or alcohol. It comes up in the face of any situation that will require serious effort to overcome. Another example would be cheating on tests. It would take serious effort to study and take the test on your own, especially when you can get a copy of the old test and just transcribe the right answers. You make a great grade and all is well, right? Nope. Here we are at process again. The point of studying for a test is so that you learn the material, and in a grander scheme, so you can learn how to think. When you cheat on a test, you cheat on the process of learning, and therefore, you don’t learn. Now imagine if you were always able to get away with cheating. You’d graduate from high school, head to college on a scholarship, then maybe decide to be an accountant. You get a great job and sit down your first day at work and BOOM!, you don’t know a thing. You desperately look for the Cliff’s Notes for accounting or maybe even a Dummies Guide, but you’re out of luck. Now what?
It may seem I belabor this point, but I see people make this mistake all the time. Again, there is no easy way through life. In fact, the very first thing the Buddhists teach is that life is suffering and that this has to be accepted before you can move on. Perhaps another way to think of this is, there will always be hard work to do in life, be it overcoming shyness, working sixty hours a week, taking care of your kids, or dealing with overbearing parents. And you may not be able to solve every problem, even with extraordinary effort. But I can tell you this for certain; you will be a better person for having made that effort. Then when another problem comes along, it will be that much easier to handle.
