If you talk to enough people about the choices they’ve made in their lives, you’ll start to notice that there are two very different definitions of “easy” out there.
Some people use the word “easy” to mean “did not require much effort.”
And other people use the word “easy” to mean “did not require many choices.”
I’ve talked to people who took incredibly laborious, gruelingly difficult paths through life because – in their own words – it was “just easier” to take that path than to choose a different one.
Neither definition is wrong, of course. Labor is hard, but making a ton of decisions and plans can also be taxing. But you shouldn’t kid yourself that you’re doing these things because they’re easy – rather, you’re choosing one form of difficulty over another. Once you realize that, you may also realize that there’s an optimal balance between the two kinds that would work better than minimizing one value to maximize the other.
You must plan, and you must labor. How much of each is up to you. Find what works, not just what feels “easy” – because believe me, “Easy Street” is a long hard road indeed.
The Opportunity Machine 