It's Easy To Do The Easy Thing

One of the core conflicts we experience is the battle we face to reject immediate gratification and invest in doing things with delayed benefits. We’re well aware of how that shows up in our health and the ways we crave a snack or dessert, want to eat more even when we’re full, or talk ourselves into skipping a workout even when we know it’s best for us.

We’re hardwired to do the easy and pleasurable thing. I believe that humanity has evolved with 3 instincts that govern our unconscious preferences: An instinct to be scared, scarce, and lazy. It’s the last one that comes up here and encourages us to conserve energy at all costs. It’s what makes it easy to do the easy thing.

Here’s an interesting way that preference shows up that isn’t immediately obvious. It’s not necessarily what’s easy to do energetically, but also what’s easy to do emotionally. Let’s say you need to have a difficult conversation with a friend. The easy thing to do is to avoid it, put it off, and not confront the pain that may come from it. If you need to end a romantic relationship, it’s emotionally easier to disengage and ghost them without explanation than it is to communicate about it. Whether it’s for physical or emotional purposes, our lives are ridden with instances where we do what’s easy.

The problem is, like the tension between immediate and delayed gratification, the easy thing to do often isn’t the right thing to do. Living ethically and with integrity is demanding. It requires more of you, and for that reason, it’s actively resisted. But what kind of life do you want to have: One where you do what’s easy or what’s right?

Given how unconscious our preference is to do what’s easy, we need to actively think about our choices to see what’s motivating them. When you’re at a crossroads or an ethical dilemma and you’ve arrived at some version of a conclusion, a very simple question you can ask about it is “Is this the easy thing to do?”

That’s not to say the easy route is by default the wrong decision, but it’s helpful to bring consciousness to it. If you need extra validation you can follow up and ask “Is it the right thing to do?” How you intuitively feel about the answer should be pretty telling. 

I wish I’d thought to use this when I had to make a difficult decision recently. Reflecting on it, I did what was not easy and I felt was right. The decision directly affected one person negatively, and I had to talk to him about it. But it indirectly affected many other people positively in a way they’ll never be aware of. The easy path was to let things flow and not address any of it, but I felt that wasn’t the right thing to do. 

Anyway, keep this framework in your back pocket the next time you sense the suspicion that you’re taking the easy path. 

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