Effort, Debt, and Contentment: Is What Is Easy Always Good?

7 February 2021

Living with Rules

Question: Is freedom being able to do whatever we want?

A workplace, a family, and living together have rules. When a person ignores the responsibilities of the environment in which they live, they face the consequences.

Adapting does not mean submitting to everything. It means understanding where and for what we bear responsibility.

The Cost of Avoiding Effort

A person may accept getting tired at the gym while avoiding carrying a box at work. Yet both require effort.

Wanting to make an effort only in areas we enjoy limits the skills that real life requires.

Question: Are we avoiding work itself, or the form of it that does not seem suitable to us?

Debt and Peace

Debt taken on to grow and possess more can sometimes put pressure on a person’s business and peace at home.

Anxiety may grow as the payment date approaches. Worry at work is carried home; relationships with family may also be affected by this hardship.

The same danger exists in loans between relatives. A relationship that began with an intention to help can turn into resentment because of an unpaid debt.

Difficulty and Skill

Obtaining everything easily does not always help a person develop. Difficulty, patience, and repetition are sometimes necessary for skill to emerge.

If we want children, employees, and family members to gain skills, we should not try to remove all their difficulties.

The Value of Contentment

Continually looking at other people’s homes, cars, or earnings can make us forget the blessings in our hands.

Question: Do we measure our happiness by what we possess, or by what others possess?

Gratitude and contentment invite us to see the value of what we possess anew.