Easy Button

I have been thinking about how life can be so hard which seems so unfair. Not that it is on my mind all the time, but it kind of stays in the back of my mind. When something happens to me or someone else those latent thoughts pop up.

As we have just celebrated the 4th of July, people have been talking about the forefathers of our country and how difficult things were for them after they signed the Declaration of Independence and how many of them lost their families and even their own lives. The country was devastated after winning the war. I was thinking what they have done for each of us, but how difficult it was. They didn't have any easy button.

Then I was reading in the scriptures and I was thinking about Nephi and how he and his family were in the desert for eight years. I cannot imagine how difficult that must have been. I don't even like camping and they did it for eight years knowing what they were giving up to be there. They didn't have an easy button, but they followed the spirit.

Then I was thinking about Joseph Smith and how incredibly difficult his life was. Imagine being fourteen and then having such an incredible responsibility placed on you. His whole life was one difficulty after the next. He had moments of joy, but he also had a lot of trials.

I wonder if these people ever knew how difficult their lives were going to be. I think that the media including magazines, movies, and tv shows--make life look easy. I was watching some mindless tv show last night. The main character was having all these problems, but in the course of an hour everything turned out perfectly. All of my favorite TV shows and movies all have happy endings. They all have easy buttons where things all come together and work out just like they want them to.

The problem is, life is not like that, but I think the more I watch the shows, even though I know it's all made-up, I have this expectation in my mind that things should work out perfectly and everything should be wonderful and easy. If there's a hard patch it's quickly taken care of and life should be just as I think it should be. I get a little angry, depressed or upset when things don't go the way I want them.

I'm still kind of meditating on this stuff, but I wanted to 'write' it down. I think I need to be reminded that even though I think my life should go a certain way, history shows that that is not the case and not going to happen. There is no easy button, but that doesn't mean that there aren't great moments.