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Hard Choices, Easy Life: What Should They Mean to You?

Darren Matthews
Mind Cafe
Published in
5 min readApr 8, 2020

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A walker with choice of which path to take, easy or hard
Photo by Caleb Jones on Unsplash

‘Hard choices, easy life,’ I’m sure you’ve heard this quote before. And if I was to guess, I would say you’ve also ignored it. After all, it sounds challenging, and none of us enjoys making difficult decisions. Even more so when you consider the alternative.

But before I get to the alternative, you should know that this sentence is half of a formidable quote.

“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”

It is the first half of a well known stoic quote, which comes from Jerzy Gregorek. Tim Ferriss also used it as a reference point in his TED talk. In the talk, Tim explains the rationale to his fear setting process, and how it draws on Stoic philosophy. Tim uses the quote to support the use of his fear setting process.

Jerzy framed the quote to explain his journey from alcoholism to Olympic weight-lifting glory. It is some turnaround. Of course, the quote has everything and nothing to do with alcohol and the Olympics. It has a much deeper meaning than that. It reaches across the life we’re all trying to live and it can help us as it helped Jerzy and Tim.

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Mind Cafe
Mind Cafe

Published in Mind Cafe

Relaxed, inspiring essays about happiness.

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