To interact with this newsletter is to take on a unique challenge that you might not only be unfamiliar with but, at first glance, wholly reject. The foundation I will be setting in place is a semantic one. And, if you lean in the direction of "words don't matter," you will find this to be a very fruitless and frustrating place to navigate.
If, on the other hand, you are curious about what power language might hold, how we can manipulate it to see life through a brand new lens, and how this new lens can benefit yourself, your family, your community, and future generations your mortality will never afford you the opportunity to meet, then I invite you to stick around.
When I introduced you to where this Enuff idea came from, I mentioned my intrigue about making the best choices the easiest choices. As simple of a phrase that might be, two very important questions come up:
Who decides what the “best choice” is?
Who decides what makes something “easy”?
I don’t actually want to spend any time answering the first question because I think it will play itself out once we answer the second question and put it into practice.
So, let’s dive right into distinguishing this four-letter word, “easy.”
This will be the first of three posts distinguishing “easy.” Why three? Because I want to commit to my goal of publishing at least once per week and describing all three distinguishing characteristics in one go has proven too time-consuming for a weekly deadline.
If you’re cool with that, let’s dive in.
The first distinguishing characteristic for what will make something “easy” in the context of Enuff is that EASY IS INFINITE.
One of the most difficult habits to break when it comes to our relationship with “easy” is going to be disassociating “easy” from “efficiency.”
We have a rather black and white relationship with time. The shorter something takes, the easier, and therefore better, we assume it to be.
I can reheat a meal in 30 seconds in the microwave or ten minutes in the oven. I'm hungry now (always), so microwave it is!
I can drive three minutes to the grocery store or I can walk 20 minutes with a pull cart. Get the keys!
I can stop at a drive-thru on my way home or make a homemade dinner instead. Mmmm, burgers. “Yes, I’ll take a number four with a medium fry, please!”
(please excuse the 100% food-related examples…I’m staring at some cookies that I refuse to touch until I’m done writing this)
In these everyday moments, we favor “less time” almost exclusively because in the moment, the cost of our decision seems minor or non-existent. And, each new or repeated decision feels isolated.
How many times have you opted for the easy dinner solution and cheekily told yourself, “everything in moderation,” without acknowledging how far you’ve moved the “moderation” line?
By reorienting yourself to a distinction of “easy” that is no longer time-dependent, you will break through this incredibly limiting relationship with what makes a choice easy. And, you will uncover better choices you never gave the time of day (pun fully intended) in the past.
You can start practicing this right now (or, I guess you can start tomorrow). Simply ask yourself when doing something you believe is easy if the thing you are doing is because it doesn’t take very long to do. And, if time was not a determining factor, if that would still be the choice you make.
We’ll dig into this in more tangible contexts in the future, but as mentioned, right now we are simply laying the ground rules.
Whether all that’s on your mind right now is “huh?” or you have a five-page reaction, share your thoughts below! And, if you want a friend or complete stranger to read what you just read, be sure to share this post!