The Easy Stuff

I watched another video of some crazy kid jumping off a building with a skateboard. There are other videos of stunts and actual acts of amazing acumen all over the internet. It seems that a lot of people are into conquering their fear and daring life and limb. I am here to say that that stuff is the easy stuff.

It is easy because it is a momentary rush of adrenaline and a flash of ability to conquer your fears. While it does take practice to do many of these stunts and many hospital visits to get good at them; most of them can be done by a novice with some alcohol lubrication.

It is not that I don’t appreciate talent and the ability to conquer fear, I do, very much; what I am saying is that this kind of ability is the easy stuff. Let me tell you about the hard stuff.

I went to the retirement part of a man at a factory I worked at. No big deal because it happens all the time. But what if I told you he worked for 54 years for the same company?  It is still not too big of deal for a man of his generation, right? What if I told you that he did not have a single sick day in those 54 years? What if I told you that he was a janitor on a janitor’s salary in a NON-union shop the whole time? What if I told you that on that janitor’s salary he put 6 kids through college and has no payments on his home? NOW we are getting to the hard stuff. This man and his wife (who didn’t work outside the home) sacrificed for 54 years on a minimum wage job and after those years they can now retire to do whatever they want … THEY did the hard stuff.

“It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not to strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition (or Youtube fame) when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud-pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (C.S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory)

We have become pleased with the easy stuff and unwilling to even picture the joy that comes from the hard stuff. You think jumping off a building with only a skateboard is hard to do? Try telling an ignorant co-worker that their sexually charged and abusive joke was offensive and wrong. You think skydiving is hard? Try holding your tongue when it is right to “turn the other cheek.” We play too much in the “mud-pies” of the easy stuff and can’t even imagine the joy that comes from the hard stuff.