Life in the Broken Places

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." 

- Ernest Hemingway

Life is hard.  Or, I should say, a fulfilling life is hard.  It doesn't just happen to you, you have to work at it.  I like things easy, and since I was born an upper-middle class straight white male in the United States, I've had it pretty easy.  I've valued the avoidance of hard work, if results can be obtained by shortcuts and half-measures.

I've learned recently that I have a lot of bad habits in this area, along with a sense of entitlement to an easy life.  I've also learned recently that an easy life cannot really be enjoyed, just tolerated. 

The President isn't taking it easy.  I'm sure there are plenty of knowledgeable people who would tell him that he needs to fix the economy, then get universal health care, then develop a new energy strategy, then get us out of Iraq, then stabilize Afghanistan, then provide meaningful education to the nation's children.  So, is that what he is doing, taking the easy route, one small half-victory at a time?

Nope.  He was elected to do all of that, and he appears to have decided just doing one thing does not preclude doing all of the rest.  Poker analogies are popular these days, so the phrase I keep hearing is he's going "all in."  Like doing what he campaigned to do, what he promised to do, and what he was elected to do is the biggest risk in the world.  I think not doing all of that is the risk.  President Obama is not a man to settle.

If life is hard, if the "world breaks everyone," as Hemingway wrote, it educates us, too.  The hardships, the difficulties, and what we learn about ourselves when we face them are what give us life, what make us "strong in the broken places."

On a cold February day, when the challenges of both the world and our lives, can seem overwhelming, I'm trying to remember a few things.  One, what I choose to gain out of this experience is greater than difficulty of it; and two, I am not alone.  My life is not a kayak, with me paddling all by myself in the face of angry seas, but a outrigger, with as many people rowing as I choose to let in the boat.