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Tom Hanks as Jimmie Dugan

"It's supposed to be hard. If it weren't hard, everyone would do it. It's
the hard that makes it great."

While it would be easy to apply a rather bawdy meaning to this, I've
actually been thinking about it in other terms. There are a lot of things
that we do in our lives that are hard. Faire is hard. Yeah, it's fun, but
anyone who has ever worked faire in any capacity will tell you just how hard
it is. It takes chunks of your life and refuses to let go, creeping steadily
into everything until you find a way to put limits on it. Some people never
manage that, and end up losing touch with reality. Others end up leaving,
unable or unwilling to continue having that large chunk taken from their
lives. That's not a bad thing, or a sign that they're any less interested or
a part of things. They just have other priorities, which is fine.

Singing is hard. There are those who have the will to make a go at making it
their careers, and there are those who do it as a hobby...either always
having kept it as a hobby, or having come to the conclusion that it wasn't
going to ever be a career for them for whatever reason. Again, maybe it's
just a matter of priorities, or maybe it's a case of will. I don't know.
Maybe, for some, it's a case of fear...fear of not being good enough, fear
of not having a secure income, fear of missing the things that others
have...like a home and a family. Maybe it's a case of not wanting it to
become work. It's different for everyone. It's hard, it's supposed to be
hard. If it weren't hard, everyone would do it. And it's hard whether you do
it for the paycheck, or you do it for the love, or do it for both. It's the
hard that makes it great.

Changing your life is hard. Whether it's breaking a bad habit, losing
weight, being healthier in mind or body...it doesn't matter. We get so set
in our ways that it's easy to forget that sometimes comfortable doesn't mean
good for you. Even when you change your life for the better, it's still so
easy to hang onto the things that you know need to go. Even when you've made
some changes already, it's so easy to slip back into old habits. Changing is
hard...if it weren't hard then everyone would be doing it in some way or
another.

Most of the things that we love doing are hard. I guess because if something
is hard and you have to put effort into it, you only really DO it if you
love it. It's not worth it if you're doing it for any other reason. I don't
know if that makes sense or not, really, but I hope that it does. I know
that the things I love to do are all hard things...things that require
commitment and caring, things that require me to work to become better and
better, that don't allow me to rest on my laurels. I can't imagine doing
things that are easy or that you can slide by without effort. That seems
like cheating to me. I don't just mean cheating because you're doing things
that let you be lazy, I mean that you're cheating yourself by not finding
something that demands effort on your part.

Life isn't meant to be a stroll through the park, that's not how we human
being type creatures work. We need challenges, we need to push ourselves and
to be pushed. That's how we make ourselves into better people. Life is hard.
It's supposed to be hard. If it weren't hard, everyone would do it. It's the
hard that makes it great.

Edit as of 10/13/04 @ 8:30 a.m.: I was thinking more on this subject and had
a couple of thoughts. Someone might say "What do you mean, if life were hard
everyone would do it? We all live our lives!" and I have a reply to that.
We're all alive, but that isn't the same thing as living our lives. So many
people put off living their lives until... I'll live when I'm retired, I'll
live when I lose weight, I'll live when I don't have to work so hard... I've
seen people put off living their lives til they were retired, and then not
know what to do with themselves. They've spent two-thirds of their lives
talking about what will happen later, and they've forgotten how to seize the
moment and not only live for the future, but to live for the NOW too. I
think it's important to learn to juggle the hopes and dreams for the future
with the enjoyment of today. Otherwise when tomorrow finally comes, you've
got nothing to show for all of your todays but a bunch of dusty dreams that
you haven't got the energy to pursue any more. Plan for tomorrows and enjoy
your todays. And no, it's not easy..it's hard. Why? Because if it were easy,
everyone would do it.