..and maybe some ways to not end like that..
Hell. It isnt some mystical place or another dimension. Hell is here and now for many people, in form of their very own lives. Actually to be precise, there is a "real" Hell, or something like that, but you will see it only if you kill yourself. So dont do that. Its one of those "easy" solutions which will send you on guaranteed one way trip to Hell. Or simply place where you really dont want to be. Ever.
So what is that "easy" way to your personal Hell? Well, our little (or big) Hells are usually made out of things we did and shouldnt do, or things we should do and didnt. Its manifestation of our past in our present. Sure, we live only "now", but that "now" didnt came to be out of nothing. Our "now" is directly dependant on our past. As much as our future "now" is depending on our present "now". Which becomes then past etc.
Simply put, if we dont count stuff we really cant have any effect on (very little of such things, but sure you probably wont choose to be born with one leg, three eyes and other variants..). Same goes with for example parents, you cant do much with them until you are quite a bit older and till then you will be most likely damaged by them (sure there are some good parents out there, if I meet one I will tell God that I just witnessed one of his miracles).
But you can do something with most of that "other stuff". Like your life, for example. Your decisions are usually your own (even with gun next to your head, you can make some decision.. sure you can die, but hey, it was pretty much your choice still, free will and FTL). Jokes aside, we usually make a lot of decisions even in our average day. Some bit more important than others. And decisions we make are creating our life. Our past, present and future.
Suprisingly enough, we are kinda responsible for our lives. So if everything sux, its probably cause you made some bad choice earlier. Except, most people wont admit that, cause they like their "easy way". Which is why they will pretty obviously suffer in their own personal Hells.
The "easy way"
What is that easy way? Well, its for example not admiting that you are responsible for your own life. Cause its sooo easy to not do that. Which is why people do that. And which is why they are punished for that. Repeatedly. Violently. But do they change? Nope. Why? Well, cause they like it "easy". And you know, thinking about yourself, thinking about "how everything works" isnt exactly easy. Also it tends to hurt. Plus there is that damned Dunning-Kruger effect at play. Wait, what? Dunning-Kruger. But thats only for the IQ, isnt it?
Actually it isnt. Beauty of that effect is that it works on absolutely everything you can imagine. Probably even few things that you cant imagine, but you are "sure that those dont exist". Even that you are "sure" of something like that is a little proof that this effect works on everything.
People are always convinced that "things are this way and there is nothing I can do about that". Well, fact that you are convinced about something like that usually means you are wrong and victim of your own thinking. Im not saying you should doubt everything that you think you know. But its good to at least think about everything you think that you know. Ask yourself all those "Why?" and "Is it really that way, or I just think it is?".
Questioning your thoughts too much is a good way to the psychiatric ward of your nearest hospital. Not questioning your thoughts enough is good way to your very own Hell. As usually, solution is in some balance between those two.
But, people are not doing this, cause its not the easy way. Its a hard way of doing things. People in general are lazy scumbags. Which if given choice will always choose the easy way out of everything. Which is why our beloved Earth looks like it looks right now. And given how people work, it most likely wont end well. Maybe time to give up our easy ways? Or at least fuckin try. It wont hurt.. much.
What exactly are those "easy ways"? Well, we face decisions almost constantly. Usually we can pick between simple fast, easy solution and some much less easy, not fast at all and pretty hard on top of that. Some examples maybe?
You are depressed. Heavily. What will you do? Well, most people go to shrink, take some drugs and think it will help. Cause, you know.. its easy to take pills. Instant solution to your problems.
About as good as dehydrated powder from which you can make so-called "instant soup". Sure, its fast and easy, it just doesnt taste much like real soup, does it? Pills or soup. Not a big difference, both is shortcut, both isnt much of real solution to the problem. Its a small paradox, that its probably easier to find solution to your depression than finding more time for making a proper soup. But thats simply cause humanity as whole is choosing fast and easy ways out. Which is why you might not have enough time. But you know, its probably your fault aswell.
Criminality as whole is one big easy way for many people. We stray away from our morals, from what we think as good and go towards evil, cause we want something and want it now. Preferably fast and easy way.
It is why scam artists are so successful. If you find that amazing deal online, in some "you never heard that name before" e-shop, then if you buy something from there, you are an idiot and deserve to be punished. Cause when something sounds too good to be true, it almost always is that way. But you are too lazy to think about it for more than a few seconds, so you will get punished. And over and over again, until you are dead, or better realize that maybe what you were thinking was wrong and then maybe you will find your higher road to travel on. No, you probably wont die over your poor choice of an e-shop, but you will die on your poor easy and fast choices in life. Easy and fast way to your coffin. And enjoy your Hell till then.
Small everyday easy ways
We make this kind of choices even in very small things in our lives. Like when we lie, even about really unimportant small things. Cause its easy and fast. We, as mankind grew very lazy and very stupid in same time. Which is why we will all die. At least something certain to look forward, isnt it? Really not optimistic thinking, unfortuntely Im probably right. You know it, I know it and Im not exactly sure we can do something with it. But, at least we can change our lives.
We make in our minds excuses for every easy and fast solution we do. Why we lie. Why we cheat. Why we didnt do what we knew was right and did what was wrong. Or why we simply did nothing. Doing nothing is sometimes the hardest way, but we usually do nothing when its that easiest way. And lying ourselves? Well, thats easy too, isnt it? Facing truth is hard and pretty scary. Also its not just about facing truth, more often its even about finding it at first place. Which is also much harder than just to simply lie yourself.
We even go so far with our fast and easy ways that we lie to ourselves that "it was only thing I could do, it was the only way, there wasnt another choice". Even when there almost always is another choice. Usually much harder. And usually right. Plus we often dont even look for another choice. We just grab and tag whatever is easiest and fastest solution to our problem. And how much and how many things we miss by doing that. Enough for another lifetime or two.
Biggest issue with easy and fast ways is..
..that we miss things that were right. Things that were good. Encounters, which if we lived thru them could give us something valuable. Experience is valuable, for example.
You dont get much of it if you always choose fast and easy way. You probably will get experience after that, in form of being punished. And because all people love their easy ways, they wont realize that. And will be just "oh poor me, what a horrible life I have". Pff, what a horrible life you created for yourself you mean?
Sure, others with their own easy ways are working usually very hard to make your life living hell too. Which is where comes time for making again hard decisions about "who will be with me" and who wont. My choice is usually people which can somehow make me life a bit more interesting, richer in experience, pass on some wisdom. Or be somehow valueable. As a friends for example. And a lots of people can be very valueable, if you are willing to actually really get to know them. Just dont expect this to be fast and easy. It never is. Plus for one good person worth of something you will find maybe thousands of empty shells which just lie to themselves about everything on daily basis. Am I judging them? Not really. Life isnt easy and I made a truckload of those easy and fast solutions for everything. I just dont plan to continue in that.
Make fast and easy decision with people and you can just count time till something really bad will happen. And it will. At least for some of us.
Equality?
We are not created equal. We are not created with equal oportunities. Cause if that was true, we would be all the same. I would like to say, that we are created with equal measure of free will, but sadly that isnt true either. Neither all of us have same strength of will to actually change something. To be good. To take higher roads. I cant say if thats good or bad. It simply is that way right now. And we cant change our past. We can only form our present and our future which will be made from our present. Plus preferably learn from our past so we wont at least make same mistakes as we did before. Cause we are humans. We are bound to make mistakes. But it doesnt mean we shouldnt try. That we shouldnt try as hard as we can. We should.
And what was that part about bad things that will happen to some of us? Well as I said, we are not created equal, which also means some people simply have higher tolerance from their own fate to amount of bad stuff and mistakes they can make till proverbial shit hits the fan. Maybe it wont happen at all for some. At least not during their current lives. But if you think, we live only once and only now, then you dont pay much attention to your life and universe as a whole. And anyway, everyone will find some truth along the way.. or at the end of it. No need to believe me in this.
Well and while some of us have a bit more tolerance from their fate (or justice system as you wish), some of us have exact opposite of that and we get punished for every little bloody mistake we make. Which is exactly how you can learn all this stuff. Cause you will either learn or die. Simple as that.
Equality is just another lie we tell to ourselves to make this existence easier. And as with all lies, its a bad thing to believe in.
What I get from hard way?
Well, I would take it other way around. What happens if you dont go hard way? Is it motivating enough? You are welcomed to try your very own easy way. See how it works for you. And if you dont die, you can come back and tell others story of how you fucked up your life. I have at least one story like that of my own.
Otherwise hard way doesnt mean always truly hardest way. It just means trying to follow what you think and hope is right thing to do. Dont expect any rewards apart of experience and sometimes feeling good about yourself. You live in world, where almost everyone is going easy way. So rewards will be obviously scarce. Dont expect people to understand you. They cant and mostly they wont be willing to. You know, easy ways..
It also doesnt mean you should try to break brickwall with your head. Sure, you can try doing that, but without proper training it will be one hell of a headache. Doesnt matter if its real brickwall or just metaphore. Headache or any ache after will be most likely very non-metaphorical.
How we can tell whats hard way, whats right thing to do at any given moment? Well, we cant. But we are humans and we are mostly created with some sort of inner compass which no matter what will tell us what is right thing to do. Only things we need to do is to listen to it and to do sanity check after. Cause just cause you feel it is right thing to jump in front of a gun and save that guy, it doesnt mean there isnt another way of saving him and not killing yourself in process of doing that. Use your brain. It is your best friend. I mean constructive thinking obviously.
Its not a easy thing to do. Simply cause we spend so much time of our lives to getting used to lie to others, to ourselves. To not face reality, truth.. or anything difficult for us really. Every time we lie to anyone, including ourselves, we know that we do that. And as we do that more and more during our lives, that feeling of doing something "wrong" will almost fade away. But inner compass is always still there and if you really want to, it will eventually tell you what is right and wrong again.
What to do for start. Think about yourself. Think about what you do. Think about why exactly you do what you do. Try to scrap all those lies which you tell to yourself away. It wont be instant. It wont be easy. But eventually, it will get you somewhere.
If you do this, if you apply this to your life, it will change it. Thats guaranteed. And you will probably loose a lot during that. And a lot of that "loss", if you give it some time (yes might be a really long time), wont be real loss at all. What you gain is better version of yourself. Is it worth it? Up to you.
And that really important stuff?
Dont lie to anyone, unless your life depends on it (and it almost never does, dont fool yourself). Especially never lie to yourself.
Do always whats right, if you can. If you cant, at least try to not be destructive in any way.
Try to create and maintain. Thats hard. Try to not destroy, cause that is very easy and everyone is already doing that, so no need to make things worse then they are.
Start using your fucking brain whenever you can.
Be yourself. Cause no one else will be you.
Just because you can do something, doesnt mean you should.
Learn true value of everything you can. And value it every time you can. Not just after you loose what you had.
Do no evil. Just dont. Problem isnt only evil itself, problem is that you are hurting your soul. And destroying yourself. And you are one of those valued things. Otherwise none of this has any meaning whatsoever.
And just dont fucking give up with trying to be better. Ever.
