Finally, a response...

This post is a further explanation to the excellent comment by Beechcreek and since only 4,096 characters are allowed in the comment section, I felt that a more thorough answer was in order.

The short answer is that the blog title comes from something the late Paul Blair, my kids' swim coach, always said. He was a renowned and highly-respected coach with national champions and Olympic Gold Medalists to his credit. He always said, "It just isn't that hard. You swim to one end of the pool, turn around and come back." Of course, he was right. What could be easier than swimming to one end and then swimming back? Swimmers the world over do it thousands of times a day. The trick is that there really is a lot of complexity to it as well.

If you're happy with that answer, then this is a good time to stop reading. Next though, I want to focus on what I think is the heart of Beechcreek's comment: "how to spend one's limited physical and mental time are quite complex decisions; ie, not every interest or desire is satisfied. What in your life is really not that hard?"

I usually think of things along two axes, x and y. Along the x axis, you could put "Simple" on the left or, zero point, and put "Complex" to the right. On the y axis, you could put "Easy" at the bottom or, zero point, and put "Hard" up at the top. You then have a clear set of quadrants that help in putting things sort of where you think they go. A trip to the moon is both hard and complex so it goes in the upper right. That simple illustration helps me think about things in relative terms. Do I find the task complex, but easy? Is it simple, yet hard? We all have some way to categorize and sort things out so that we can cope with them. Not everyone will categorize a given situation/problem in the same way. Your simple may be my complex. My easy may be your hard. This is just a model for helping sort and sift stuff out.

The Simple/Complex axis is more about the steps involved, the calculations required, the science inherent in the situation than anything else. The key is always to break complexity down. Simplify as much as possible. Start with the end in mind and work back to a reasonable beginning.

The Easy/Hard axis is more about character, will, values, and ethics. On that axis, we're looking for the right thing to do, the best outcome, the Good. Sometimes finding that point is harder than at other times, but maybe only because we make it harder. At our core, we usually know what should be done. We hear people talk about making the "hard choices", but I suspect that's more public relations and political correctness than real moral dilemma.

Beechcreek asserts that "how to spend one's limited physical and mental time are quite complex decisions; ie, not every interest or desire is satisfied." There are two ideas in that statement and I want to address each one. The notion that "how to spend one's...time [is] complex..." is certainly truer for some of us than for others. I know people for whom those decisions are simple; not at all complex. For others, though, those decisions are of such complexity that they are paralyzed by indecision. There's a good bit of current research that discusses "decision fatigue" and "ego depletion" and the effects of things, like poverty, on buying decisions in grocery stores. By way of example, making the decision to go grocery shopping might be easy ("food is needed and the market is across the street"). But, getting out of the store properly provisioned and on budget might be complex ("I must feed four people something nourishing for 3 days and only have $25"). Decisions may be made more complex because of external conditions, including the number of decisions required in a given time and the amount of money available.

The second idea in the comment is that "not every interest or desire is satisfied." That is generally true for most of us although all of us can probably name someone who at least thinks their every interest and desire have been satisfied. Maybe, we can think of times when we experienced that feeling ourselves, even if only briefly. I've never been of the opinion that my every interest or desire would be, could be, or should be satisfied.  That concept might very well be the basis for most of the volumes of religious and philosophical writing.

Perhaps, like Beechcreek, I have felt many times that life is hard; that the choices facing me were difficult; that there was too much of the world and not enough of me. It dawned on me one day that Coach Blair was right. We swim to the end of the pool, turn around and swim back. The famous basketball coach, Bobby Knight, was giving a speech to a gathering I was attending one time. In a nutshell, he said that he believed there are four steps to great performance: 1) do what needs to be done; 2) do it, when it needs to be done; 3) do it when it needs to be done, as well as you can do it; and, 4) do it when it needs to be done, as well as you can do it, over and over again. Simple; but, at least for me, sometimes hard. Chalk that up in my personal Upper Left Quadrant.

As a corollary to Coach Blair, what Coach Knight said is spot on. You can start every day with a keen desire to be where you think you're supposed to be; to do everything you can to create a positive value in the lives of everyone you see; to learn something new that you didn't know; and, to be as open to the possibilities in the world as you can.

Each of us is surrounded by tremendous opportunities, many of which we never recognize for what they are. We are more capable than we give ourselves credit for being. We are also often our own worst enemies. I think that, excepting mental illness, when given a chance to make a so-called difficult choice, most people make the right decision, most of the time. The bad decisions that people make (and that we see reported on the news and Internet) are often the result of external influences that have a negative, debilitating, coercive, or threatening effect on the person. When we take the time to think through the possible outcomes, reflect on the damage to be inflicted, seek other paths, or subdue our personal demons, the odds of making a better decision improve.

When approached with good intentions and good will, truly seeking the best outcome, there are very few decisions that are either right or wrong. We never get to make decisions with all of the facts or knowledge we need or want. We don't get to peer into the future to see the outcome. We can only do our best. Then, we can adjust and do our best again. Most of us proceed along a fairly bumpy road, sometimes stumbling and sometimes strolling. Neither condition is permanent. Neither condition may be entirely of our own making. We just continue...and endeavor to enjoy the journey in each and every moment.

Peace.