Indeed, life as you live it, often seems hard, so hard. It seems hard because of ideas you hold. You have sequences of ideas, one tied to another, and you believe in all of these ideas. Based on your thoughts, you may well set yourself up for difficulty.

You come to conclusions of what life is supposed to be. You want life to be easy, yet it isn’t. Why isn’t it? Isn’t life putting one foot in front of the other? What is so hard about that?

When you say that life has to be this way and not that way, you come up against an obstruction. Rather, you pull the obstruction up to you. You set a deterrent in front of you.

What if you could think that life is whatever it is right now, and it’s okay for life to be like this at this moment? It is okay. Life is the life before you at this moment.

Who says that decisions have to be difficult? Look, in life, if you find yourself facing a wild tiger, do you theorize about it? Do you say to yourself or to the tiger: “You shouldn’t be here. You don’t belong here. You shouldn’t be in front of me.”

Beloveds, I don’t think you debate the issue of a wild tiger when it is before you.

And yet you wrangle with what may be before you in life.

It is easy for you when there is a teddy bear in front you. You just go up and hug it.

You may have tasks before you, some you like, and some you don’t. And each has to be taken care of.

Life doesn’t always ask you: “What would you like, dear?”

Life often seems to say:

“Here I am. Do with me as you will. I suggest that you take care of me as I am before you. Know that whatever I present to you, for whatever known or unknown reasons, it is your course of life I present, and you are the one who has to take care of me. You are the one who has to deal with me, not as you would wish I be but as I am.”

Beloveds, when the radio is on too loud, you are the one who gets up to lower it.

When there is mud tracked on the kitchen floor, you are the one who wipes up the mud.

When you are facing a law suit which sets trembling in your breast, you are the one who has to go to court.

When life hands you what you consider a hard blow, you are the one who has to get up on the count of ten, and pick up your life.

When you are driving a car in traffic, you can’t keep blasting your horn. You are the one who has to get out of your own way. You are the one who has to move along. Moving along in life requires moving along. Not rebuttal but forward-moving action. Not moaning and groaning, but forward-moving action.

When your baby cries in the middle of the night, you get up and take care of your baby.

Your life is not to cry about. Your life is to get up and take care of.

It is no longer for you to blame the state of your life on something outside you. If you are in a pickle, it is for you to get out of the pickle. And if you can’t seem to get out of it, then you are the one to move along anyway.

You are responsible for your life. No one else is.