I had a friend with a great sense of humor, sometimes wickedly so. One of his more oft used phrases, said in a comedic ‘idiot’ type of voice was, “Math is Hard”. This could mean that someone was claiming they hadn’t done a project because the most basic parts of it were too difficult for them to put out the effort or it had made them significantly late in getting it done. Or it could mean that someone was complaining about a task because it was unpleasant and they were claiming that it was technically difficult instead. This could just be whining or it could be trying to get out of the task all together. In any case we all recognized the phrase and would get a laugh out of it, then put our noses back to the grindstones of our own lives.
It is very common for people to value their dreams, their happiness, goals that will make them successful so little, to wrap their identities so firmly around failure, that they will do whatever is possible to undermine them while still having them. It’s a weird form of torture that validates their failure and their identities as failures. “Math is Hard” is one way that people do this. Having a dream, their logical left brain looks at all the options they have for achieving it. And then it separates those out into tasks and timelines, even if they are vague, and can even make an action plan to get them done. Which is the point at which math can become hard because it is very easy at that point to see how the steps in the plan will affect and change day-to-day life and that’s not always a short-term improvement.
Taking on a second part-time job in order to pay off a credit card has long-term rewards. But in the short-term it can be exhausting, it can put you in situations that can be humiliating or just mind numbing or frustrating or all three. It can cause short-term stress on the body, it takes up all your free time that you would be using for something fun, and leaves you with little energy to enjoy what free time you have. Sucky, right? But these are short-term things and once the credit card is paid off you no longer need the job, are out from under a significant stress, you can work on not getting into debt again, you have more money for yourself since you’re not paying a credit card bill, etc, etc. So short-term pain, long-term gain. However, ‘Math is Hard’ and so many people just won’t even go there. They’d rather let things go on the way they are and not improve their lives or make changes of any kind. And then complain when the world ‘does things’ to them because there are consequences even when you do nothing.
So what area of your life are you ignoring because ‘Math is Hard’? It’s just too difficult for me to take on right now, I don’t want to think about it, ‘I’ll get around to it’ later, or something will happen to fix it…well, imagine this is your Round Tuit. 