Why do we make things hard to do?

I’m sure you have noticed that some things are hard for you to do and some things are easy.  I have wondered about that.  There are some things that are hard for me to do but are easy for others to do, and vice versa.  I watched a famous musician playing guitar one time and said to myself, “Boy, I wish I could play like he does!”  But then I realized that he probably spends 8 to 10 hours a day playing his guitar and has for years.  If I spent that amount of time playing, I could probably be as good as he was…  So I dropped that wish because I knew I wasn’t willing to put the time in to get that good.

So.  OK.  Some people are good at things because they spend the time to be.  For most of us, the things we spend the time on are things we enjoy doing.  So it doesn’t feel like “work.”  It just comes “effortlessly.”  But then there are those things that seem like no matter how hard we try, they’re just hard to do.  That begs the question:  Are they really hard to do or are we making them hard to do for some reason?  For example, if something is hard for you to do, but others find it easy, some times they will do the thing for you rather than watch you struggle with it.  So your doing it “the hard way” has the benefit of getting you out of having to do it at all.

Alternatively, everything you make hard to do prevents you from doing something else because you spend so much time getting the first thing to work!  So some times we decide that we have to finish “this” before we can do “that” and making “this” hard to do means we can postpone starting “that.”

What prompted this whole line of inquiry is that I have designed a piece of needlework that (in my mind) will be beautiful when finished.  I have been procrastinating starting it even though I had already completed the design and bought the supplies to make it.  I started on it today and find that I can only do a very few stitches before my back starts complaining.  I am using a new stand to hold the work and that is my “reason” why it hurts to work on it:  the new stand is an awkward construction.

But is that really what’s going on?  Or am I afraid that my current level of ability is insufficient to make this item as wonderful as I have pictured it in my mind?  Stopping after every 10 or 20 stitches means that it will take forever to finish.  Literally, as I will probably give it up way before it is finished.  If I were truly dedicated to getting it done, a little tension in my back would not stop me…  Which leaves me with more questions at this point than answers.  If I do complete it, you’ll see pictures of it here, but as my aged Italian Granny would have said, “No holda you breath…”