Life is hard, but it doesn't have to be.

 Life is hard. Grown-ups tell you that when you're a kid, but nothing they say prepares you for the day you realize just how difficult and cruel life can really be. Even more difficult is the day you realize that life is hard because people like to hurt each other. You hear that money doesn't grow on trees, and that's because once people get their hands on a little, they're afraid to let it go. Ask any successful business and they will tell you that money does grow on trees, and those trees are called 'suckers.' You hear that nothing is free, and that's because people aren't willing to give anything away, not when they could get paid for it. Are you crazy? Why would we do that? You hear that love hurts, and that's because people are selfish. Loving one another requires giving, and we've already established that we have a problem with giving. What if we don't get something in return? What if I give this girl my time and money and love and she dumps me? Well, that's not a risk I'm willing to take, but she'd better love me, dammit.

Life is expensive. In high school, I always heard people complain that there was nothing fun to do in town for free. Of course that was untrue, but when teenagers say there is nothing to do, we know that they're lying. I never saw anyone playing football in the park for fun, just at the high school where they paid taxes to be on a team that bought uniforms and put them in a division where they could play against other towns and sell tickets and concessions and hire announcers and coaches and trainers. I never saw anyone swimming in a pond or creek or river or lake, just at the pool where you had to pay $8 to get in and you could buy swimming trunks and goggles and floaties and pay for a locker and they could hire life guards and a desk staff and a janitor and pay for insurance in case someone drowned. I never heard any of my friends say, “hey, let's go back to my house and have a barbecue or make sandwiches and talk.” It was always, “let's go to Pizza Hut or McDonald's and pay more than the food is worth to cover their food cost and labor and overhead and they can hire cooks and fry guys and waitresses and janitors.”

Life is short. How many times have you heard someone say that? Life is short because we work five days a week and sit around tired for two and we have to save for months or years to take a week off and go somewhere fun. By the time we have money saved up and we're ready to go do something fun, our bodies are worn out and the only thing that sounds fun is golf or TV or getting our wheelchair re-upholstered.

I have seen too many people look at life like it is already set out for them. I am going to graduate, get a job where I get paid hourly, hopefully I'll have paid vacation time, and I'll get married and have kids and take them to the pool or McDonald's and put them on the high school football team cuz that's what ya do.

Stop. Look again.

The best times I have had in my life were when I broke the rules. Life doesn't have to be hard, or expensive, or short, or boring, or a huge drag that drains you until you age prematurely. Think about your best memories and you'll probably agree with me. Remember barbecues? They're cheap. Fire is easy to make. Ask a caveman. When I lived with my brother, we had a big back yard where we could dig fire pits. We would drag some benches, backseats of old cars, old recliners, folding chairs, whatever we could find, out to the fire pit, throw in some wood and a bit of gasoline, and half an hour later our yard would be full of people. Adults, kids, teenagers, our parents, our friends' parents, just a bunch of people having a good time. Were we paying for it? No. Some people brought beer, some brought food, but if you divide the cost of a few steaks and beers between forty people, you have a pretty small cover charge. Did we hire a DJ? No. We had a stereo, we had a piano. Did we hire waitresses? No. Bouncers? No. Did we have to pay insurance in case someone got burned or choked on a bone? No way. What did we do? We sat around and talked, but I remember those barbecues better than I remember any dinner at any restaurant.

Think about some good relationships you've had, or that you've seen other people have that made you jealous. Two people get along, laugh, love, cuddle, always seem to be together, always call each other at night when they can't be together, even if they just saw each other that day. I don't mean the clingy, disturbing relationships where two people can't stop touching each other in public and can't sit on separate couch cushions. There is some serious, unhealthy, latent jealousy in those relationships and they end hard. I'm talking about people who have been married for thirty years, like my parents. Or younger couples that seem to have it together. They can go out separately without being jealous, spend a day apart without suffering, but spend a day together and cherish every minute. You see them holding hands at the grocery store, making eye contact and laughing, kissing on the doorstep. They are reserved in public when it comes to affection, but you can bet the sex is great.

What ties all of these things together? What makes life sweeter, less expensive, more fun, more memorable? What is the common factor, the undercurrent that makes all those memories so sweet? Remember that day at the beach? Or that night on the back porch? Or that ridiculously long, but hilarious road trip?

It's love. I don't mean affection. I mean love, the verb. Remember verbs? They're action words. Love is something you do. Love is an attitude of giving, an attitude that is the remedy for all of the pain I mentioned in the first paragraph. Life is hard when we don't love each other. Life is expensive because we don't give. Life is short because we don't live. Jesus had it right when he said “Love one another.” Whatever you believe, that's damn good advice. Love is being kind and giving, but it's also sugar. It makes life sweeter and more bearable. It can change the flavor of your life altogether. In fact, it is inevitable that love will change your life, just like pouring sugar on your food will always change it. My dad always ate Life cereal, and I remember I could only eat it with sugar or else it was just too dry and tasteless.

My goal recently has been to examine my life and find out why it is so hard, so lonely, so expensive and scary. I want to start challenging tradition and culture and the two-dimensional line that is our expected life course. If that interests you, come back and read some more. Write to me with your input or discoveries or advice. Help me challenge the hard life we all live so that we can learn to enjoy it even more.