Is life really that hard ?

                      "Lyyyyfff is hard” * period*

This is something that all, so called “Grown ups” around me, have said to me since I was a wee girl. (Noooo, I’m not Scottish, I just looooove how it sounds!)

Growing up in an Indian culture, I was always surrrrrrounded with people who preached, “LIFE IS HARD”.  And because life is hard, we kids were taught to do everything hard - Study hard and work hard, after all life is hard. 

  

I remember being 17 and curios about life, about what life is like when you are an adult. 

So I asked my Grandma, what she thought about “LIFE”.

  (Yea, I wasn’t very smart back then, I mean what answer was I expecting from a woman who had lived through wars and plagues and famines!) 

She said, (looking up at the sky, cause she is dramatic as ffff) “Laaeeef is a lot of pain and suffering until you die, then you got to heaven and meet GOD and finally your suffering ends”. 

(Grand ma pretending to be thoughtful cause why not) 

Whenever something went south, all adults around me would either blame their luck, god/some mysterious divine power or life itself, 

mindlessly concluding, “Life is hard” or "Life is unfair”. 

You would agree with me if I say that - Growing up around such people wasn’t the best.

                           

 As a kid, I imbibed all of these beliefs and as a teenager I found myself regurgitating them whenever something unexpected or particularly bad happened to me. 

It was like my mind was a dumping ground for the society, where all the “ GROWN UPS" would come and dump their trashy, bitter and illogical beliefs. And I just took it all in.

I had been reading a lot about this concept in the past month. And finally a few days ago on a rainy Tuesday evening, for the first time in my life, I asked "MYSELF" this existential question (instead of asking it to the so called Grownups) - 

                                 (Beginning of the Tuesday, flashback)

Wuuaaaat is life? 

(I wanted to know what I really thought about it!)

And there it was, MY VERY OWN ANSWER that my intuition/my subconscious gave me - 

“I AM LIFE”. (*utters surprisingly*)

Yes its me, I am life. Life is not outside me, it's…it's inside me.

Then my attention swiftly drifted out of my bedroom window on the grill where a "Tulsi plant” was sitting on the top of a split AC outlet and my subconscious uttered loud and clear. 

This plant “this is also life”. (*utters surprisingly again*)

Then the focal point of my eye quickly shifted its focus to a tall Ashoka tree standing in the background, on the street. 

And there was the same answer again,

 This tree “this is life”, 

The bird sitting on one of its fragile branches, even "that is life". 

The house I live in, the job I do, or the people I live with, or the country I live in, isn’t really life. "I am life". 

But if I am life..... how is lyyyyffff……. hard? What the heck does that mean?

                                         (End of the Tuesday flashback)

Well, reeeeaaally, It means nothing. 

It's just one of those stupid, uneducated beliefs that people hold up to, all their life, without any logical explanation.

What we refer to as "LIFE", is actually just our surrounding. Your job, your house, your college, your relationship, your parents, your country, all of this is just your surrounding, none of it is really “LIFE”.

You are Life! What's happening inside you, is Life!

By definition- Life is anything that matures, evolves, grows, developes, reproduces and dies. 

If you think life is hard and if you are suffering it, here’s a food for your thought - "Most people think that they are suffering life, but what they are actually suffering is their own mind and body". 

We don’t suffer what’s outside, we suffer how we perceive it on the inside.

Because that is where our real life lies.

I am currently reading the book "Homo Deus - A Brief History of Tomorrow", and this is my favourite quote from the book.

"We never react to events in the outside world, but only to sensations in our own bodies." - Yuval Noah Harari.

So if you are aware of the life inside you, the real life. If you are able to manage your inner life well. 

Will Life really be that hard?