Just Because it’s Easy, Doesn’t Mean it’s Wrong
People are judgemental creatures. Judgemental comments drip from our mouths all the time, without intent; some more-so than others. Our judgements keep us safe, insulate us from the world of the unknown, tell us what is “right” and “good” and what is “wrong” or “bad”. The most judgemental people I know all protect themselves from their sad/dysfunctional realities with these judgements. As long as someone is worse off or somehow inferior, they can feel in control of their lives and feel a moment of happiness.
This is, of course, awful for anyone who is a target of that judgement. When you know the person, you can build up a thick skin, you can anticipate the cutting comments and prepare yourself to ignore them. When it’s a stranger or someone you do not know well, it is more difficult to predict and defend against these attacks.
This article is targeted specifically around the judgement of worth based on level of effort, and talking back to it.
Example: Easy Food
When I was growing up, my mother always spoke negatively about my friends with regard to their diet. Their parents would order pizza, sometimes, or eat pasta, or serve potatoes instead of vegetables, or eat oven or boxed meals. I heard this self-righteous rant over and over again: “I don’t make much money, but I always make sure you have good meals every day. You get meat — good meat — and fresh vegetables every night. I don’t make you junk like that. You have a much better diet than other kids.” I’m in my thirties, now, living far from home, and I still hear this rant.
When I was going through my period of burnout, I stopped being able to make food. My concept of a meal was that it had to be a “proper meal” — nice meat, fresh vegetable. At the time, that was so much mental and physical effort I just couldn’t face it. So I went the other extreme and started eating the “junk” that my mother had always informed me was the only other option — pizza, mac & cheese, pasta, rice. Stuff I could make in the microwave in a few minutes. Stuff I could buy in the freezer section and heat in the oven with no effort. These were all bad things.
I felt ashamed of myself for years, berated myself with every bite of food I would take, and criticized myself (on her behalf) for not being a good enough person to make a proper meal. Meal-time became a moment of intense dread — I didn’t want to face all the critical comments in my head, I didn’t want to face all the critical comments she would say the next time we talked. So I stopped making food. I was prepared to live off crackers and bread to avoid the shame of not making a “proper meal.”
Fortunately, my spouse stepped in and started cooking. But even when the meal was made for me, I still had guilt every time I faced a meal of canned vegetables or freezer lasagna. More guilt piled on top of that because I felt I was being ungrateful for the meal, which I did not have to prepare.
I was lamenting about this to my psychologist, who was helping me get my ADLs (Activities of Daily Life) under control so I could, eventually, be employable again. I explained how I was a failure, because I couldn’t make a real meal, and how, the few times I was able to cook, I prepared crappy, easy meals. Easy meals, you know, the ones you don’t toil over, that come pre-fab from a box or tin. At the end of this, she said:
Just because it’s easy, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Confronting the Wrong
I would love to say that a light bulb went off in my head and my world view shifted and I suddenly found acceptance and understanding within myself. That would be untrue. I fought was she was saying to me for a long time — at least a year. But it stuck with me. Just because it’s easy, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Well, no, it’s not wrong, I would think, it’s laziness. If my mom, run off her feet with children, overworked, and underpaid, could find the time and energy to make a proper meal every night, without fail, I should be able to make a single meal ONCE when I’m unemployed and have no obligations.
It took me a long time to see the should in that statement and to confront it. And, ultimately, it was with those words — Just because it’s easy, doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Easy food is still food. Maybe it’s more expensive, maybe it’s less nutritious, but it’s food, it’s effort, and it’s a small step toward taking care of myself.
Since that tiny victory (and it was tiny, I still have food-preparation issues), I have started to see other areas in my life where I recoil from the “easy” path. And each time, when I examine why I can’t get the job done more simply, the answer underneath is always that easy == wrong.
When my lawnmower broke, I couldn’t afford to get it fixed, so I let the lawn grow. When the city finally threatened to ticketed me, I broke down and paid someone to mow it. I was very angry at myself for that, because it was the “easy” way out — and thus the wrong solution. The right solution would have been to repair the mower myself (best — even though I had never done anything like this), or do some odd jobs to save up money to either pay to have the mower repaired (second best — even though I was unemployable at the time) or tighten my belt and cut costs so that my savings (that I was living on) could cover this new expense (least best — this would require no “real” effort on my part). I had to confront myself with the easy doesn’t mean it’s wrong statement in order to give myself permission to have someone mow the lawn, and then to accept that it was not an indicator of my inherent wrongness.
Much later, after numerous other easy == wrong confrontations, I started work again. Getting to work was difficult— I had trouble getting laundry in order, put away, and shirts hung up in the closet. I was forever digging through piles of unfolded laundry to find a clean shirt and socks to wear, and it made me late. When I started lamenting to myself about how hard it was to get out the door in the morning, a warning bell went off. I thought, Hard means difficult, which is the opposite of easy — so what is the “easy” solution that I’m avoiding? I won’t go into the details about what that solution was entirely, since it’s specific to my house and its geography, but now I hang or drape my shirts up on the railing outside the bathroom, and I take some time every few weeks to match socks.
My house looks a bit like a laundry machine exploded sometimes, but it works. It’s easy. I get out the door on time. When I have more bandwidth for laundry, I fix things up and put clothes away in the drawers and closets. But when I don’t, I tell myself, Easy gets it done; anyone judging me on how it gets done is the one that’s wrong, not me.
Early Detection System
When I start noticing the words “easy” and “hard” cropping up in my thoughts, I know that someone in my head (my mother, my grandparents, my biology teacher) is telling me that I’m doing something wrong. I know that I need to put some thought into where the “wrongness” lies, and what my alternatives really are.
While these little critical voices, which collectively comprise our conscience, serve normally to guide us to ethically and morally correct behaviors, they can also get in the way and help us heap criticism upon ourselves. I live with depression and PTSD. I live a different life than they have. Every day, I face difficulties that their classification systems were not designed to handle. So why should I accept their judgement?
I am a different person; and different is okay. Easy is okay. Existing, surviving, living in this world is a challenging feat. Why make it more difficult by making myself do everything “the hard way”? Is that really better? What do I lose by taking the easy route in day-to-day things? If I microwave vegetables instead of steam them, does that really matter in the scheme of things? If I don’t have an organized closet, why does that make me wrong? If I pay someone to fix my car because I don’t have the interest or capacity to learn to repair it myself, does that really make me terrible? If I have to play music while I shower, am I worth less than someone who enjoys showering for virtue? If I have to “cheat” and “trick” myself into doing something because I don’t have the strength of will to just power through, am I somehow weaker or less worthy than someone who can self-flagellate to get it done?
What do I gain by doing it the “hard way”? A sense of satisfaction in a job well done, a sense of superiority that I struggled where other people “took the easy way out”? Is that worth it? And, when the barrier-to-entry of the hard way too high, so that it doesn’t get done, is it acceptable that the task doesn’t get done? If I’m late paying my bills because I keep losing them in a pile of mail, the “hard” (i.e. right) solution is to organize my mail and improve my filing system — but that a lot of work and takes a lot of time and energy. Paying my bills on time is important to me, so isn’t it in my best interest to find an “easy” way that will work until I can get my filing system in order?
I am happier and healthier doing things the “easy” way — and that can’t be wrong.