I am hearing that you can’t wrap your minds around Seneca’s principle: “do what is hard when it is easy”.
So I am going to give you some examples… and then ask you to add your examples to the comments section. Let’s create at least 50, OK? Together…
Maintenance is a good example. Exercising is easy while you still can. If you don’t, movement becomes difficult… and then you are seriously limited.
I think the “do what’s difficult while it’s easy” is vague, so all of life fits into it well. It’s a principle. It’s a distinction. It is a way to look at the world…
Find examples. Make it a swiss cheese: shoot holes into it.
- When I published my magazine, as soon as I finished the current one, I immediately prepare the template for the next one, and do complete purging of what was not used for the old one, or versions of ads, etc. It was easy: I remembered everything still.Then came a few days of sleep. Rest. Forgetting.And the next magazine: template ready, no trash…
- a party and the dishes… cleaning it up,putting it all away is easiest before you crash for the night…When breakfast time rolls around, no signs of the party is there… nothing piles up.
- I haven’t made many faux pas in this arena, but one that cost me a lot.In my third year of studying in architecture school I got ill and missed more than half of the semester.It would have been easy to learn all the stuff while the lectures were going on, but I was in hospital.Never could catch up. There was a hole in my knowledge for all the 17 years of me working as an architect. Unfillable hole.something becomes difficult either because it piles up, or because of time constraint…
- Wiping a spill when it happens instead of waiting it to dry and become crusty and hard to clean up
- Buying pantry type foods when money is plenty… so when money becomes scarce, you won’t starve.
- I have 253 articles started. Most have one sentence… or just a quote… So when I have nothing to say, no idea what to say, I just go through them. I always find some that create a spark.I once watched a video of how Joyce Carol Oates writes… just like me… except she puts them on index cards.When there is enough for a novel, she puts them in order. Adds some more sentences to some of the cards, until the story is so clear, it writes itself. Reference: https://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/create-structure-in-your-fiction-using-index-cards
- logging into websites or paying for something, when you are in a hurry, is a real pain. I have been using a 19 dollar a year software, Roboform, ever since it came to the scene… and have saved a lot of money and time with it. I do what’s easy before it gets hard.
- It’s hard to find the money to buy things that aren’t often needed, but I saved the money to buy a good used generator at a moving sale that will generate electricity for my home for that one time when the power is out for a week or more due to an ice storm, hurricane or other natural disaster. Much easier before than after because during the crisis stores either sell out and you can’t get one, or they increase the price because desperate people will pay the price.
- I didn’t know about timing belts years ago when I owned a Monte Carlo Z34 and when it broke while I was driving on the highway, it caused all sorts of collateral damage to the engine, costing a lot of money to fix. It would have been much easier to have the timing belt changed as part of the normal maintenance, than to let it go and have to pay twice as much to repair the damage.
- I haven’t had maintenance done on my heat pump/air conditioner for a lot of years. It will be much easier to have someone come do some simple maintenance on it now, than to have it stop working when it’s 16 degrees outside.
- Trying to figure out a right diet (with your help) before my body is damaged beyond repair, or before I have no energy left to do anything about it.
- I’ve been cooking beetroots on steam today: peeling them off while they’re still hot and not before eating, so that the skin comes off easily.
- I need to change my water filter, but the closest I can get it is Germany, and they don’t ship to Poland. Now I need to either buy an overpriced filter and the shipping tax from the US or wait until a family friend comes with a visit.It wouldn’t happen had I bought the filter when I was still in Germany.
- Putting required license stickers on my car the same day I receive them, instead of waiting and getting a ticket because I forgot to put the license on.
- After repairing my clothes, I thread a new length of thread through the needle. This way, I always have a threaded needle ‘ready to go’ for a quick emergency.
- I have a bag in my car trunk that is specifically for things to be taken to the thrift store. It encourages me to keep disposing of clothes and materials that I inherited from others, never used or no longer use.
- Your example here…
Read the original article: Do what is difficult when it’s easy… what does it mean for you?