The "Everything Should Be Easy" Syndrome

Ah, America! I write that as if I knew much more about other cultures, which to be honest, I really know close to nothing about anything outside of the way we Americans live. I mean, sure I grew up in the Dominican Republic but that's still Latin America and it seems like contemporary Dominicans are highly influenced by the North American way.

No long ago I was teaching a class to kids in a private school that was about building wooden airplanes. The process required some sanding, gluing, coloring and adjusting. The reaction of many of my students was "Why do we have to sand them?" or "Why do we have to build them ourselves, why can't we just buy them at the store?"

It's amazing, at first it happened in a private school where the kids where obviously (financially) wealthy, but then it started happening in public schools too. We are so spoiled as a nation that we don't want to work for anything. We don't want to learn how to cook, how to drive a standard transmission vehicle, we don't even want to have to use our bodies anymore.

Forget just not wanting to do any physical work, we avoid going to college because it takes too long and it's too much work. We look to do a three-month course in photography or a two week bar-tending class so that we can get a license and make quick money. We don't want to use our brains. We want the car to automatically shut the headlights for us and we want our food to be ready in less than five minutes. No wonder why the fast food industry is owning the world.

In any kind of relationship we feel that if it's not easy to get along, then we should just discard them and move on. We don't want to do any kind of work. In our personal development we want to go see a psychologist once or twice (if even that) and if we didn't get results then the whole thing is bullshit. In spirituality if we don't get to know God within the first few months of seeking, we discard our devotion and convert to more worldly ways. If it's not EASY, we scrap it.

If the pill doesn't cause weight loss then we just forget about the whole thing and move on to forgetting all about ever being healthy. If the natural herbal pill doesn't get rid of the cold immediately then we say that the product is a scam. If it's not easy we just say FUCK IT! We become defeated, comfortable people who have settled for cynicism and low-level despair.

I can't tell you how many students I've had that when I tell them that learning to sing takes YEARS, they run for the door, move on and find another teacher that lies to them telling them that they can learn right away and takes their money. All only to later come back to me and tell me I was right the whole time.

The whole "everything should be easy" spoiled brat syndrome is slowly taking people's PASSION for living away from them. It is an immature, absurd and defeatist attitude that stinks like dead rats. NOTHING THAT'S REAL IS EASY! Only fantasies and delusions are! Like credit cards, make-up, instant soup, tights that conceal your fat, beach resorts, computer editing, magic, lies, tricks and bullshit. All those things are easy, but they are not REAL. Phony relationships, phony weddings, phony orange juice, phony laughter. All those things might be easy but they are PHONY.

It is easy to build a house without a foundation because we don't have to get dirty and dig a whole. It is easy to make a house out of cardboard because we don't have to chop wood and carry water. But all the easy stuff goes away as easy as it comes. EASY COMES, EASY GOES!

Wake-up from the silly dream of magic, perfection and ease -- it's a fantasy. Look at Kim Kardashian, she looks like an idiot... is that who you want to be?

I feel very SORRY for people with the "Everything Should Be Easy" Syndrome... they're half brain-dead! I am so HAPPY I got out of it! Anything worthwhile is CHALLENGING!