How “easy” do you find life?

[BrushYourHairRightNow]

And what impact do you think that’s had on you?

Our big boss at work is the picture of confidence and happiness. She has said she finds life easy and always has - successful at school, at sports, well loved by a close family, glides through work with a smile and has reached almost the top of a very big corporate. I have no idea if they were well off as kids (she certainly is nowadays) but certainly it seems that stability and love and whatever else has given her a confidence that life is good, that life is there to be enjoyed, that life is easy. Like some kind of emotional privilege.

Of course, you never know what goes on behind closed doors, but I do believe you can kind of tell who are the people with very little adversity and a lot of love and stability.

On the contrary, I look at DH and I - between us our families include at least one narcissist parent, divorced/remarried parents, proximity to sexual abuse, very low income, borderline alcoholism, mental health issues etc etc. I mean nothing really awful has happened, some of it just 80s/90s working class or lower middle class “normality” I guess.

And overall DH and I are “ok”. We live a nice life now, but we have both limited ourselves in different ways, we have both struggled with confidence. So I do wonder what difference it could’ve made if we both had more positive, stable, healthier, happier foundations.

Boss lady obviously grew up with an innate feeling the sky was the limit and everything was simply a fun choice, not a challenging hurdle. She’s lovely too, fab to work with, not arrogant, just holds a quiet reassuring position that everything will be ok and enjoyable at the same time.

My life is easy at 36.

Career and finances that allow us to outsource what we don’t want, holiday where we do want and we sleep well at night. Children are happy and healthy, doing well at school.

Age 21 I was nearly murdered by my first husband. 🤷🏽‍♀️

So life is easy now, but it wasn’t always.

This is something I think about quite a bit.

I have an objectively lovely life. Nice family, all grandparents still alive, wonderful husband, three gorgeous kids, great friends, nice house, good jobs, enough money.

However, I have come to realise that I’m a glass half empty person and am really prone to anxiety and overwhelm. It can suck the joy out of things, because I worry and panic over the small stuff at the expense of the bigger picture. My mum is the same (perhaps worse, and definitely lacks the insight into it that I’m beginning to develop!) and so I wonder if a lot of it is a learned behaviour or genetic wiring. Inappropriate stress responses and poor coping skills - so internally struggling even though outwardly having it all!

My husband, in contrast, is emotionally rock steady. His mum is the same. They are almost impossible to rattle, even in the face of some real adversity. They are both unbelievably resilient. I am so grateful that they are this way and I am trying so hard to learn from them and try and channel this for our children! It really makes life so much better, to be able to let a stressful thing kind of bounce off you, or at least keep it contained.

Alongside the inherited element, I think there’s an element of having family stability and financial security that helps greatly. I grew up in a loving but working class home and my parents divorced. I did really well at school, but was a fish out of water at university as I always felt like an outsider and I noticed that lots of my wealthier peers had a kind of ease that I didn’t recognise. Not (always) arrogance, but they clearly felt that they were entitled to be there and take up space, where I was more inclined to want to curl up and disappear. The private school confidence of feeling that you belong in the room was definitely a thing! I wonder whether life is a bit easier if you always know that if the shit hits the fan, your parents could bail you out. I’m quite cautious and still anxious about finances despite being far better off than my parents ever were, as I think that worry about running out of cash never really leaves you.

An interesting read. Thank you.

It's a mix, I've been very blessed in some ways I have an amazing husband and a degree of comfort he provides but I've also struggled with chronic health issues for many years now which make life difficult.

On paper i don't have an easy life at all but my mindset is very positive and I enjoy my day to day life a lot.

My parents are alive but divorced and both getting older and more challenging with their health and behaviour. I'm a single parent after DP had an affair and started a new family when my DC were still very young. My (only) younger sibling died a few years ago after a devastating illness. I have a very challenging job which i love but is very busy and pressured. I have a reasonable salary but don't have any savings (but parents are comfortable and help in a pinch).

Despite all of this I feel confident and happy and don't really worry about anything. The kids are my best friends, they do well at school and are happy and well adjusted and we go cheap adventures together in the holidays. We have a simple but pleasant home and I drive a 20 year old car and wear second hand clothes. I am lucky that we don't have any significant health problems and I get on OK with my ex and he sees the kids regularly so I get a break here and there (and they benefit from having a positive relationship with him and his wider family).

I feel very lucky and love my life but I know its a confidence, mindset thing more than the hand I've been dealt. I don't feel like I need anything more.

How many people really feel/felt just purely loved though, with no instability? I can't imagine that myself. I grew up in financial stability but not emotional, I never felt anyone had my back.

I have been through a lot and I think I've responded to that by now having more resilience and more gratitude for being OK.

I find life easy now - there is very little that gets to me. I'm totally different to the insecure, anxious person I was.

I agree with pp that everyone is different in how they respond to their upbringing, life events etc. If you have financial security and your health, you should be glass half full, but so many aren't.

Really easy, I’ve been lucky in life. I love my life and make friends easily and have hobbies I enjoy. I travel a lot too which I love to do. I have shite going on (2 cancer referrals and operations in August, disabled DC, dying DM) but I manage to compartmentalise bad things and concentrate on all the good things. I’m not one to wait until everything is perfect before enjoying life.

Not easy at all. I left an abusive relationship with a horrible, violent man eight years ago and I haven't slept an entire night since through fear. I moved to the opposite side of the country and I still can't go anywhere I even think he might be, including my home town with my family in it, I fear any person I meet might lead me back to him or the awful people in his life somehow and he will hurt the people I love or me. I can't have tradespeople or service people in the house unless I've fully researched them just in case. I've had so much therapy and nothing helps, the memory and fear of him has infested my entire life like Vecna from Stranger Things. In some ways I function just fine and nobody would ever know, but in terms of freedom and happiness it has made my life not worth living. I've never written anything like this anywhere before, even now I'm afraid he will know it's me.

My life is incredibly easy, but then I only have myself to worry about - my parents are dead, I have no husband, no children, no siblings. I have money in the bank, which will run out at some stage but I'm not worrying about it at the moment, but will be renting for the rest of my life, and I am retired. I haven't had any great trauma in my life, just the usual deaths, my parents divorce and their old age and issues, I'm long term separated, I've been made redundant. I had a happy childhood and was loved, and I've managed to cope with the bad times in life and come out stronger. Mostly I am very content and happy with my lot, and on the rare times I do feel a bit low I give myself a good talking to and it never lasts long.

While there is an imbalance, there’s also an attitude. Some people deal with stuff better / with a can do attitude and others make every normal life stress into the biggest drama.

my parents have had some tragic events but are still positive. Dh’s parents have had minimal drama yet their glass is empty and smashed on the floor always feeling hard done by and jealous of my parents, ignoring the tragedies they’ve lived through.

I don't find life easy, never have; however I am secure in the knowledge that God is above me, below me, beside me and within me. This gives me the strength to overcome the hurdles and keep on keeping on!

I’ve had a really quite fucking hard and traumatic life with a lot of adverse experiences but I am irritatingly (apparently!) positive and optimistic. Partly my personality and partly because I’ve been through so much that I don’t really worry about what the future holds because I know everything will happen anyway and I may as well enjoy the ride.

It’s quite reductive and a bit sneery to say that happy people must have had a charmed life. I find life easy because I decide to frame it that way, and because I’ve worked really hard on myself to get to this state of mind.

Indeed this is what I notice too about the level of comfort in terms of taking up space.

And whilst financial privilege plays a part I guess it’s that rock-steady aura that your DH/MIL have vs yours and your DM’s.

I suppose if you grow up in a shakey world you see the world through a shakey lens.

My very wonderful friend grew up in an alcoholic household and is riddled with anxiety well into her 40s. She’s achieved so much but I often wonder how much more she could’ve done if she hadn’t have had to deal with an alcoholic parent from the age of 7.

My start is life is so similar to yours but now life has majorly hit easy street and I am grateful for absolutely every minute of it. Honestly we have earned it. I’ve learned a lot from the adversity too, I set boundaries like an absolute ninja.

Life's not easy for anyone. You never know when it's going to change either. Your life could be turned upside down very suddenly.

You sound such a positive person. Sorry for everything you're going through

I’m not trying to be sneery.

But your last sentence kind of proves my point in that you’ve had to work really hard to get to that state of mind. There are people that have the foundations, the context, the people and the emotional blueprint that mean that they feel like that without having had to work hard for it.

I’m not saying that you can only be happy if you’ve had a charmed life, but maybe you’re likely to find it easier if you’ve got the cushioning around you.

Emotional privilege is the best way I can think to describe it. Along with compound interest.

Magic formula is probably something like a steady stable start + emotional regulation + absence of adversity in younger years = more likelihood of finding life easy.

I had a really shit childhood so life is great now. I honestly feel no matter what happens it's good, because I have choices. I'm not utterly trapped at the mercy of immature, selfish, mental adults anymore.
My MIL has commented how I take everything on the chin (SIL, her daughter finds everything hard and stressful. Her emotions are all over the place and reactions to life are huge) and I just think fuck no, none of this is a big deal. I'm free.

I find life difficult, even though I don’t think it objectively is - it’s my personality, trauma, anxiety and depression that have affected my ways of coping.

I have never fulfilled my intellectual or earning potential but I have much to be grateful for and a lot of it has come about through my mental and emotional struggles. I’m a recovering alcoholic and grateful every day to be sober. I haven’t always made good decisions but I am happily married and have a great relationship with my siblings, who are very precious to me, and ‘good enough’ family relationships. I don’t love my job but I like working, I have lots of interests and enjoy learning new things. I am somewhat able to be there for other people. I live in a place I like. Life is unpredictable but I try to be more like the stoical and resilient people I admire.

This is very true. Bad things happen to good people all the time, as evidenced by some on this thread.

However, I bet the ones that are able to remain positive through or reclaim positivity after all the shit stuff more easily are ones who had emotional safety and security growing up.

Nope this isn’t true.

What I did do though was have two lots of counselling so I could move on with my life and make the most of my one precious life.

However, I bet the ones that are able to remain positive through or reclaim positivity after all the shit stuff more easily are ones who had emotional safety and security growing up

Sorry that made me laugh out loud I definitely did not had emotional safety or security growing up but I do now. It is a real blessing. I had to build that myself.

I was a positive person and I did so many things like travelling around the world for three years and starting my own business. I have spent two years now with a daughter with anorexia. It has sucked absolutely everything out of me. Maybe some people can cope with very mentally ill kids. It’s ruined my marriage too. My poor child suffers and I suffer.

I haven’t personally got much to be unhappy about at the moment, but often it only takes one sad or anxious loved one to make even the most chipper person struggle by proxy. A lot of is down to pure luck.

Yes, very easy . Work as a teacher in Dublin , finish 2.30 , not much after school. Laugh half the day at school as my colleagues are so great !!
Lovely husband and 5 kids who are all highly academic , as in max points in their exams and love sport and music. They also have lovely pals and spend much of their time playing golf/ tennis with them or travelling with them .
Nice house in a lovely area . Mortgage paid off . Lots of holidays . Fabulous , fun friends .
Have had sadness of course - my brother died young , parents are divorced , mum now has dementia . Our 4th child almost died during Covid from an exercise addiction/ eating disorder .
I never , ever dwell on the sad stuff as I just always am so so grateful for what I have and know that it could end in an instant if I lost my health or that of my kids .