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.

It’s an interesting conversation OP. I do think it’s a mix of mindset vs circumstances. Some people are much more resilient and see problems and hard times as part of life, others not so much.

I myself feel like I have an easy life now. I am still young (ish!), have one child who is awesome and having only one means we are generally calmer (which I like!) and have a lot more flexibility to travel with ease and more money - we enjoy travel very much so that makes us happy, great husband, flexible with my job and good family/friends. However between my DH and I we have had a lot of tough times. We have dealt with a lot of death, more than anyone I know, however, I think when you lose people you love at a young age it does encourage you to live your life instead of waiting for everything to be ‘perfect’ and not to put things off. After these deaths I dealt with horrible anxiety and I was pretty miserable but now that has improved I just look at things differently and realise what I can control and what I can’t - that makes life a lot easier. I also don’t compare myself to people or live how other people expect me to live.

Funnily enough I find the people around me that would argue they have it tough are the ones who have sailed through life without many issues. They dwell over small insignificant things and compare themselves to others over materialistic things, which in turn makes their life harder, for themselves.

I would also argue with one of the above PP about privilege. Just because you don’t have money worries it doesn’t mean you don’t have worries. I’m not sure you can generalise and say everyone with money and a sense of privilege has an easy life.

Really good points here. I think I agree with them all.

I think to a degree resilience is cultivated and having too “easy” a life can make it more difficult to cultivate.

Some people naturally have resilience, a bit like empathy and compassion, but for others they get opportunities to learn it as they face up to adversity and develop a sense of mastery in coping with negative uncertainty. It’s a double edged sword though, because too much adversity overwhelms people and means they can reach for other not healthy coping mechanisms.

On the other hand sometimes you read posts on here from people who do not appear to have developed empathy or compassion or resilience and you can get the impression that they are very vulnerable to that blind siding event around the corner that hopefully never comes.

Personally I don’t get a sense that their life is as enviable as they might experience it because I have really learned the value of these traits to my relationships.

If people like you then life is made easier for you . Doors are opened for you opportunity wise and people tend to help and support you . My DS is easy going and liked by all . He says if something doesn’t affect him or its nothing to do with him then he doesn’t care and it’s not a problem until it is . He’s also selective who he interacts with too .

Yes absolutely but both can be true at the same time. I wasn’t suggesting that all privileged people are glass half full, just that when they are (and those who talk about it without reflexivity ie not all), they tend not to realise why their privilege might make it a lot easier for them to view the world with optimism.

I had a difficult upbringing but in my twenties/early thirties I was a pretty optimistic person who found life quite easy. I always felt fairly lucky.
when I got to my mid thirties I had a few hard things happen and ended up having a breakdown. Since then I’ve struggled to see the positive although I am fairly accepting of my life even though it’s hard.

If your boss ever faces a significant loss or chronic pain or similar she may be less happy go lucky

Very interesting thread.

My approach in the last few years (since the shock of Covid) is to have fun while you can. Life is not a dress rehearsal - go after what you want in life and don’t put things off. And stop looking for reasons why you can’t do something - the truth is you’ll never be fully ready. What’s that saying/mantra? “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. I try to live by that!

Adult life kinder than when I was a child. Retired early. Pension not enough to.live on but doing some work to supplement it. Some health niggles and a chronic illness that affects me intermittently but life is ok most days despite the fact that both parents and partner are deceased. Have good friends and family.

Oh gosh, that sounds absolutely draining, love. It's so rubbish when you feel like you're stuck in that cycle of exhaustion and worry. Have you been feeling like this for a long time, or is it a more recent thing?

Grew up with domestic violence aimed at my mum and I, drug / alcohol addiction and poverty on a council estate in an impoverished city so yeah… Tough beginnings. Dropped out of school at 16 and left home at the same time. Fended for myself ever since tbh.

Despite it all, I got a PhD and I’m now a successful academic. I strive to give my own DC the most stable and loving upbringing I possibly can. They have no idea how hard some children’s lives are, they’re very sheltered from it intentionally.

Would I say any of this has been easy or that I find day to day life easy? No, definitely not but equally I wouldn’t want an easy life. I’m the sort of person who genuinely enjoys struggle and challenges, I need to be tested.