Living is hard work

An acquaintance of mine posted a photo to a social media account of her working out at the gym. The caption read:

Dying is easy. Living is hard work.

I wanted to comment on the photo caption. But then I stopped. The more I thought about what she said, the more my response changed.

Was she right? Or was she wrong? Could someone so healthy have an opinion like that? Or was her positive attitude the right way to go?

Flip-flop response

My first response was to be angry. I have friends/cancer buddies who are on hospice, and dying is not easy. I wanted to give this acquaintance a piece of my mind. I wanted to grab her by her muscle-toned arms and tell her to FUCK OFF, she doesn't know shit about dying.

But then I cooled down and thought, "You know, living is hard." Sometimes I worry so much about a future death (that I might not even succumb to) that I stop doing things I should be doing, like exercising and saving for retirement.

PHOTO: My cat, Caravaggio, who experienced a tough end of life

Then I did a 180: What does she know? She hasn't experienced a medical trauma. She hasn't worried for her own life. Life is peaches and cream for this stay-at-home, take photos of her 2-year-old all day and post them to the Internet while experimenting with vegan cooking, 30-something mom.

Then I felt guilty for thinking this way.

What do I know?

We don't know about the trauma that exists in our friend's lives. Shit, I write a blog about brain cancer and I write about every component of my personal life. What if this person had a miscarriage? Or was abused as a kid? Or saw her best friend die in a car crash? It is not right for me to judge her or anyone else.

Moral of this story: don't get worked up over stupid shit.