I read somewhere: “I am happy purely out of laziness. To be unhappy requires a hell of a lot of an effort”. This is not just a cute sentence but a very deep truth.
Most people work from the concept that to do something well is hard work, to get higher school marks requires more effort and that in order to be happy in life it requires a great struggle.
It is true that to get the best marks at school you need to make an effort. But it is less of an effort than not to learn…
It is true that to do something well you need to make an effort. But it is less of an effort than to something in a shoddy way.
It is true we need to make an effort to be happy. But it is less of an effort than it would take to be unhappy.
Life flows and it has its own logic. We spend more energy trying to block that flow than what we need to spend to just flow with it.
We can think of the tree analogy (eg: a fruit tree). In order to grow and bear fruit this tree needs to make an effort to get its nutrients. If it doesn’t want to grow and bear fruits it will have to make double the effort to block its own nature, suffer by lacking nutrients in order to make itself weak. This means that the tree will have to waste much of its time and energy and go through much suffering all with the purpose of not growing and not bearing fruit…
Similar to what happens with humans. Imagine someone goes into a shop and it is badly attended to. Probably, this person will spend quite sometime thinking about the unpleasant circumstances, creating tension, generating fantasies and feeling irritated. What does this person achieve? Nothing. Is it enjoyable? No
The least effort is in doing things well. The least effort is in developing our capacities and gifts, and above all, to apply minimum effort means to flow in tune with Life
The Serenity Prayer
