In his book, “The Road Less Traveled,” author and psychologist Scott Peck, begins with this simple truth: “Life is Hard.” He goes on to say that while this fundamental statement seems straightforward and easy to assimilate into our consciousness, in truth, we resist the notion that life is hard. We want it to be easy, or at least easier than it seems to be for the most part.
Peck goes on to explain that the paradox of life is that until we embrace how truly difficult it is, and live with intentionality, we will continue to find the rough waters of life extremely difficult to navigate. He concludes that it is only when we lean in to the true difficulty of life that it can ever become any easier. This may seem counterintuitive, but in actuality it is a firm truth.
For example, when we continuously try to avoid conflict with others as opposed to being authentic and trying to solve the conflict through conversation, communication, collaboration, compromise and understanding, we expend a tremendous amount of psychological energy keeping things “calm:” This just worsens the problem in the long run.
During the pandemic, many people found themselves at home, either working from the sanctity of their own “office” or without a job and relying on unemployment insurance to tide them over. Subsequent to a return to “more normal,” many workers left the work force because they had become accustomed to the luxury of being out from under the yoke of management and the idea of an 8-to-5 job just wasn’t appealing anymore. The problem with that scenario is that work and productivity are required to in order to earn a wage, and when workers hold out for “fewer hours” or “working from home” before they will return to the work force, they often find themselves on the wrong side of financial success. Of course work is hard, but unless we can embrace that, our lives will be even more difficult.
I was thinking about this recently on a trip to Minnesota to return the grandchildren to their parents following another successful Cousin Camp. (And I will write more about that experience in the weeks ahead.) My youngest granddaughter, Nora, is very averse to stinging nettles. She despises them and if there are nettles in her path, she will almost refuse to venture forth — a lesson hard-earned, but one that potentially limits where she can walk in the woods as Minnesota seems to have more than its fair share of nettles.
In truth, stinging nettles have been used for hundreds of years to treat painful muscles and joints, eczema, arthritis, gout, and anemia. Today, many people use it to treat urinary problems during the early stages of an enlarged prostate (called benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH). It is also used for urinary tract infections, hay fever (allergic rhinitis), or in compresses or creams for treating joint pain, sprains and strains, tendonitis, and insect bites. It is wonderful plant that is commercially grown for its medicinal benefits, and it is also edible.
The problem is that stinging nettles have tiny “hairs” that break off when they are bumped, and these tiny hairs can cause extreme itching. A form of punishment in medieval times was to use a whip made of stinging nettles on a person’s bare torso while pouring cold water on them following each lash. (Not sure what the cold water did but am not so curious as to want to find out for myself.)
As a child growing up in southern Indiana, we had plenty of stinging nettles, and after my first encounter with them, I remember the elderly farmer on whose property we were walking smiling and saying, “Son, if you’re going to touch nettles, you’ve got to really grab them hard — anything less and you’re going to end up really itchy.”
As I’ve researched this, I have learned that folk who harvest nettles commercially for medicine or food try to do so with a firm grip that essentially “lays” the hairs flat without breaking them off in hand, rendering them harmless. So, it seems like the folk-wisdom I learned 60 years ago was essentially correct (as is a lot of folk wisdom, I’ve found over the years.)
I found the comparison between stinging nettles and life compelling…we can’t just bump up against life, because to do so will create a lot of pain and suffering — we have to realize and accept how hard it is, lean into that reality, and then live with intentionality. When we do, we may find that the journey is more pleasant and somewhat less “itchy.”
