It isn't easy.

An Iris Soble Levy original, “It isn’t Easy.” My grandma, the most dramatic woman, but also one of the most inspiring women I’ve ever known.  Her signature poem is referenced at least once per visit to the famous “center of world” our family calls Wilkes-Barre, PA. For years, I would listen as my grandma eloquently said her poem each time. In fact, there’s someone in the room who will mouth the words to the poem as she performs it because we all know it so well. But for so long, it wasn’t more than just a annoying family tradition to me. Recently, I realized the reason she did so often wasn’t because she liked that specific poem so much, but that it was always applicable. One thing I’ve learned in high school is nothing is easy, whether it’s writing a history paper, initiating things to do with friends, or talking about the role of media in our lives. Although those examples may be more reflective of my high school experience than my classmate’s, I think we could all agree that each day comes with challenges, but also rewards and it is especially at this time in our lives that we become more conscious of them from a more mature perspective. Now that we are reaching the end of our high school and pre-college careers, I continue to reflect on all the years that came before and what has happened in order to get to this point. I think about where I came from and where I am now, and my grandma’s voice is what always gets me. It’s her saying “It isn’t easy” that I realize the purpose of these past eighteen years of our lives is to be where we are right now and do what we can right now to make the future brighter and better, but at the same time understanding that it will never be done with ease because work is hard. Work is not something we stumble upon, it’s where passion comes into play and makes a purpose of each day we spend with our peers in a community. Life is not determined by happiness although that’s what often brings us the most instant satisfaction; I believe that life is, rather, determined by the purpose we attach to it over a span of time. To find instant happiness to me is not what makes a life worth living, to me a life worth living is one in which we feel free to be ourselves to perform our best work and work with others to the best of our ability and when we can’t or we don’t, we acknowledge that (with pain sometimes), but move forward. I know this was all rambling, and I apologize if it is incoherent, but this poem has done so much more for me than I could even imagine. Even after just sitting down to write this post; as I think more and more about it, I realize that I will always approach intimidating things, but it’s through poems like my grandma’s that I understand like others that “it isn’t easy” and life isn’t about making things easier, it’s about experiencing them and taking control of ourselves and the world around us.