©2025 Myrna Urmanita. All Rights Reserved.
So, this morning I got up later than I should have. Easy thing to do when you're up till 4 am writing your novel. Nothing new. It's been that way since the thought entered my mind to write it. No, I'm not talking about the 50 years I've carried it. Ha ha…very funny.
Anyway, I woke up thinking I wish there were a shortcut to getting a book published, let alone read. I've read so many horror stories of people's experiences just waiting for a publisher to even open their envelope, let alone read through the first paragraph or page—especially from debut writers—like myself. How scary is that, I thought.
What's even scarier is knowing I'll be 77 in a few months. That's when you know your chances are even slimmer. That is, mortality becomes the weight on a debut writer's shoulders while writing a novel. The pressure to complete it. The pressure to stay healthy. The pressure to figure out how the heck to get it into someone's hands before hell breaks loose. That was enough to make me jump out of bed this morning.
So if you wonder why older people get up so early or stay in bed so late. I got an answer for you. You stay in bed, because you're retired, and after 40 years of getting up early to get yourself to work, get the family going, then yourself going, out that door to a job you don't love, but know you got to do, to an hour commute, that you can drive in your sleep, and don't, but wonder later, how you got there. Or, you stay in bed, because, well, just because, now you can, and you've got nowhere you have to be. Your time is finally yours. So in short, because "We earned it!"
So, let me veer back on track—about that shortcut in life. Simply speaking, there isn't!
Life is hard. Period. Everything about it takes work. You've got to go through it, walk it, fall, and rise. There are no rules, and there are definitely no shortcuts.
Even if there were, even the shortcuts take you right back to life is hard. I know, you look at someone else's life, and you think, “Wow, they got such a charmed life." Really? Do they? Unless you walk in that person's shoes, you can't really know. And, if you ask them, they will not tell you the struggles they go through…because a charmed life is everyone's dream—theirs as well. And the struggles aren't something they will share in their thriving, happy social media life.
Then, of course, some of us lean on faith, on a higher power, like me. But that, too, will take you right back to where you began. Life is hard. I know—been there, done that, and still there. Faith is my anchor. I'll never let it go, no matter how hard it is.
I can attest that life is hard. I am a witness. I am a survivor, not just of breast cancer, but of my overprotective, overly disciplined, sterile childhood, motherhood, wifehood, single momhood; of loss—losing a brother and father to cancer, losing a mother to heart failure, and losing five beautiful family pets; of career success, of career failure; unemployment, and finally, retirement.
Yes, life is hard!
When we are born, we don't come with directions on how to live our lives. There is no road map to direct us. Sure, we have parents, mentors, advisors, counselors, and coaches. But they all lead right back to life is hard.
Life is meant to be lived, hard or easy. You have to be there, present, to experience every minute, every second, you succeed, you fall, you hurt, you love, you feel. That's just the way it is. And with that higher power, you can't just sit back and let him/her do the work. You have to put in some work yourself and meet him/her halfway. Again, it all leads right back to life is hard.
It has to be because that's how we grow. If life were easy—
How would you know or appreciate your charmed life?
How would you appreciate your success?
How would you recognize your strengths and your weaknesses?
How would you know yourself?
A charmed life is everything we strive for as soon as we are born. Our parents become our guide, our roadmap to get us there.
Everyone chases success, or the appearance of success. Whether you get there through education, inheritance, or a lucky lottery ticket, the world doesn't care about your journey; it only looks at your bank account and what you have to show for it. We try to buy, skip, or cheat our way to the finish line—not realizing that there is no shortcut to life.
If life were easy, you would not recognize how strong or weak you are. Nor would you recognize it in others. Your life would be on an even keel. A monotonous life filled with routine. A robotic life, your movements mechanical. An empty life, without feeling, without purpose. A perfect life? How can a life be perfect when human beings thrive on human connections?
You can never know yourself when life is perfect. You can never really know others when your life is perfect. Because you will not know anything other than what you have lived, what you have experienced, and what you have. You don't know the meaning of struggle, loss, pain, healing, and growth. You only know that life is easy. You live in a bubble—
And bubbles burst.
Eventually.
So life is hard. And, at my age, I've come to appreciate that my life happened as it did. Without the shortcuts.
How else could I have survived what was to come?
How else could I have developed the tools to survive?
How could I have reached the success, not monetary, but of living a rich, full life, filled with the wisdom of understanding the human conditions? Of receiving the gifts of human connections?
My success cannot be measured by people's eyes, but is felt in people's hearts.
I can wake up every morning and feel the joy of waking up to another day, of knowing I can sleep in or not.
I can get up to the calm I have earned because of the work I put into my past.
I can appreciate the beauty of my struggles.
And I can wake up with purpose.
No shortcuts—just a hard life.
My success.🌺
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The grass is not always greener on the other side. And if you believe your eyes, then look closer. It’s not real.