Not by itself. In combination with everything else that happened that day, possibly so.
That’s a lot of what does make life complicated. The problem’s rarely that there’s always something. The problem is generally that there are a batch of things at once.
This is true. However, the OP asked a question; so answering it does seem in order.
Not already having the answer isn’t an indication of anything worse than ignorance; and that’s not an insult, we’re all ignorant about a lot of things. Asking questions is a good way to learn – though I am a bit curious as to whether the OP has come back to read the answers.
Almost every single one of these things are things I struggle with on a daily basis. I have insomnia so I tend to sleep in too late. Eating is a pain, I struggle with an ED so I either eat too much or too little. Showering and dressing are a challenge when you have an infant and sometimes I’m too depressed to care. I’m anxious about going out in public so there goes shopping. Because of my ADHD I rarely enjoy free time or have any luck with doing chores consistently. Finances are currently a mess due to COVID. Sleeping? See insomnia above.
I don’t mean to be bleak or anything but for some of us basic everyday tasks are a challenge. Just doing the basics is exhausting for some of us because it requires so much focus and energy.
That’s not even getting into the stuff that life is really made of, such as personal relationships and parenting and work responsibilities and religion or whatever else is going on.
Considering that most people who are fairly intelligent can’t seem to navigate all of the basic aspects of life in a healthy manner, it’s fair to conclude that it’s a somewhat complicated game.
There are many things that ostensibly have very simple formulas, yet if you lay out a step by step blueprint 95% of people or more will fail. Maybe life isn’t that complicated but people (with their baggage, egos, insecurities, biases, etc) are; I don’t know.
My personal experience is that the older I get the wiser I get, but part of that wisdom is realizing that the world is more complex than I thought.
Its like my capacity for mental complexity and depth maybe grows from a 2 up to a 5 from my teenage years to the present, but I realize the complexity of the world also grew from a 5 to a 20 during the same period. The more I learn the more I realize there is endless stuff I don’t know and probably can’t grasp with my limited primate brain. And I’m not just talking about basic ‘live to 80 without starving to death’ stuff. that part isn’t super hard. Its more you run into problems you can’t solve and injustices you can’t overcome that make you realize your limitations.
‘survival’ isn’t too hard. I agree. thats what you’re talking about. You’re talking about obtaining enough money to feed/shelter yourself and performing basic self care rituals. Hell if you really want you, you can commit a capital crime and get a life sentence in prison. Then the food and shelter is provided for you. Granted, then you have to navigate a very hostile social environment.
But then you throw in all the bad stuff that comes along with survival. Illness and injury, mental health issues, self doubt, existential crisis’s, natural disasters, accidents, unresolved trauma,s etc and even the survival part can get hard. You can have an amazing life, injure your back, and then be back living with your parents in a year.
Complexity does not come from everyday life, it comes from exceptions to everyday life. Washing clothes is not complicated - dealing with things when your dryer dies becomes complicated, as in discovering that GE sucks bad, researching a new one, buying a new one, getting the new one put in, learning the new one.
My wife got a new knee. That adds to complications.
My editor just asked me for a column in a week. That adds to complications.
For my volunteer IT guy work I have to research Zoom rooms for a meeting this Saturday.
And I have it easy being retired. Since I did do a good job of managing my finances I don’t have to worry about them, and I pay someone to worry about them. Which has worked out very well. And I have to get Christmas gifts for my wife, kids, kids-in-law and grandkids.
Complications don’t come from everyday life, they come from one damn thing after another.
Most of us don’t have jobs that require simply showing up. (Thank heavens! How dull!) My old job as a teacher:
• Check work emails. Oh, joy, a fire drill during second period. Second and fourth are both U.S. History classes, so they’ll be out of synch unless I figure out how to condense something in second block.
•Homebound teacher enters. Surprise! I have a kid who’ll be out for two weeks. I must figure out how to make the group project doable by one kid working at home, write out the instructions, and gather materials.
• A student comes in early upset about something and needing to talk.
• The phone rings. Can I cover a colleague’s class during my planning period?
• Announcement over PA: We have an inservice on using the new attendance program during our planning periods. I’ll have to get someone to show me after school. No, dang, I have an IEP meeting after school. When? Who? Where?
And that’s just the first 10 minutes.
Life is only simple if you view it in unrealistically simplistic terms.
Yes, I’m still a young adult at 23 years old, but here’s what I meant whenever I posted this thread:
Life can be complicated, depending on various “situations” that affect all of us. Even though we all experience negative setbacks here and there, we try to handle them to the best of our ability. However, some people are at a disadvantage.
Answer this: What sounds more complex out the following: sleeping, eating, or managing your finances?
To some, sleeping and eating are not even comparable to handling your bills every month. But what about the person who deals with insomnia or struggles with an eating disorder?
They have to deal with an extra issue on top of going to work and keeping up with their monthly payments, along with everything else. This can make their life “more complicated” when compared to the person who eats healthy and sleeps great.
Furthermore, these negative setbacks can range from the after-effects of heavy drinking the night before to dealing with a death in the family.
Finally, even though life may look simple on the surface, everybody is different when it comes to their own lives. Some people may have an easy-going life, while others aren’t so lucky, which is why it’s important to stay positive about life, because:
nothing is permanent about your life, expect for death and taxes.
Being able to handle complicated things doesn’t make them any less complicated. It just means you are less likely to screw them up. Which may mean that you get even more complicated things on your plate.
Through ambition and especially at work I agree. But there’s another, more negative, side to this.
My wife used to do legal aid. This led her to coin a saying:
Some people can parlay a parking ticket into Murder One.
The point being that “stuff” mismanaged can snowball. What could have been a simple brake repair on your car becomes instead an accident totaling the car if you wait too long on the repair. etc.
Effective people swat so many minor things so quickly they are like the background dust in the air; you don’t even notice them. Less effective people end up with frequent landslides into their living rooms. In either case it’s just a little dirt. But with much greater effect and much greater effort needed to react to.
Life is made “complicated” when you have to make choices, particularly if those choices are mutually exclusive and involve other people. What you describe is the uncomplicated life of a 20-something college student or recent grad, perhaps in their first real job. For the most part, yes, at that age life is mostly waking up, going to work, enjoying your free time, taking care of personal errands, rinse and repeat each day. As you get older, things get more complicated.
Wake Up
Where? Easy at first as it will probably be your parents house, then a dorm room, then whatever cheap apartment you find (perhaps with some roommates). But eventually you might not want to live in a crappy 6th story walk-up. Or you want to raise kids so think maybe a house in the suburbs but then you have a long commute.
Get dressed
This should be pretty simple. And yet every now and then I meet a grown-ass man who doesn’t own a tie.
Go to Work or School
Unless you are content to just working whatever job you can find, this is probably one of the most complex decisions you will need to make. What do you want to do for a living? What kind of lifestyle do you want? What kind of education is required? Do you have to live in certain parts of the country to do this sort of work?
Eat Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner (along with snacking as well)
Shopping to provide for yourself or for everyone (not an everyday task)
Enjoying your free time outside of work (from staying home to going out)
Doing chores (from cleaning your house to maintaining your vehicle)
Personal Hygiene
Individually not complex, but taken collectively, it can become a never-ending list of “to-dos” that needs to be managed. Particularly if your work or hobbies makes excessive demands on your time.
Managing your finances
Easy when all you need to do is make rent and pay for food and beer money. It becomes more complicated when you need to figure out how to pay for college, a mortgage, kid’s clothes, etc.
Sleeping
There is a reason why most people don’t get enough of this.
People who catch the little things on time are less likely to have landslides in their living rooms. But such landslides can happen to anybody; anybody can get hit by a truck, or lose a job, or have a major medical condition, or suddenly need to care for someone with a major medical condition. And the people who’ve been hit by one such landslide are often thereby made less capable of catching the next round of little things on time; leading to more landslides.
Thanks for explanation. That didn’t seem clear at all to me from the OP, which says:
I used to be one of those life-is-simple people, and looked down on people who somehow couldn’t get their act together - “is it that hard?”
Now I realize, yes, it is in fact very hard, and more complex than the it’s-easy folks would concede. In fact, I think a lot of mental disorders these days stem from living in a world that’s too complex; more complex than we’re meant to deal with.
Wish it were for me. My university did not give me any student loans because being under 25, unmarried and not a veteran they told me my dad was helping me pay for college (spoiler he didnt). So my college life was working 40 hours a week, going to school full-time (15-18 units) and trying to pay for an apartment and car.
Yeah, unless you live your live like George Clooney’s character in Up In The Air (basically treating relationships and anything permanent like they are bricks in a backpack you need to carry around through life), interpersonal relationships will add complexity to your life. When I lived by myself in my 20s, sure, I basically did what I wanted, when I wanted (factoring in going to work, etc). Heck, I have an uncle in his late 60s and a cousin who just turned 50, both never married and no kids who still more or less live their life that way.
For me, I have to practically use Jira boards and Gantt charts to coordinate the schedule for me, my wife, our two small kids, and our nanny on a normal day to day basis (plus external stakeholders like her parents and extended family and my Dad).
