So often, the things that stop us are hard. Hard to face, hard to fix, hard to talk about, hard to live. …

I refuse to accept that. I refuse to be stopped. People often ask me what I do for a living, and I answer that I consult and help small businesses in the arts succeed at being awesome. But, I think what I really do is smash things. I take other people’s problems and smash them into tiny enough pieces that they can be cleaned up.

Last week, I spent 2 hours unraveling a lost account, and set of previously purchased, but unused ISBN numbers for an author. I did that by calling a phone number (which I had to dig to find) and telling the person on the other end that I had no idea how to resolve this, and would take any help he could give me. I also facilitated planned a Thanksgiving dinner that includes turkey, elk and homemade past. And I cleaned a house including finding over 20 bags and boxes of things that could go to Goodwill. None of that was hard for me.

So what is hard for me? To understand why other people let things be hard. I could tell all kinds of other stories about what I did last week. I could ask everyone to cut me some slack because life is hard and I’m coping with a lot. But, why? It’s my life. It’s not hard, it’s what is. I don’t need slack. I need success. I need love, and work, and laughter. And none of that is hard.

A former client used to always say, “But this is what is!” And I would agree. For her, it was drama, tragedy after tragedy and too much to do. For me, it is what it is. It’s my life. I like it better when it’s easy. I like it when I can tell a client, “I didn’t get to you today. I’ll try again tomorrow.” And the client say, “Okay!” I like it when I look around and see my choices as I made them and life as it presents itself. I like it when even in the darkest moments, I still have a choice, and an attitude of YES!This isn’t hard. What’s hard is to fight that. What’s hard is to accept drama as a way of life. What’s hard is to wait to for everything to explode instead of just smashing it into the bits I can deal with.

So, as we approach the hard months of the year… THE HOLIDAYS, and then we approach the other hard months of the year… THE COLD MONTHS, I am going to find a bigger hammer, and I am going to smash and smash and smash. And I am going to laugh when pieces fly off. Got anything you want me to smash?

UPDATE – 10 MINUTES LATER

I got up from publishing this post to do the dishes, and knocked this over.  OOOPS!  But hilarious – thanks for the laugh Universe!