Making Your Life Easier VS Making It Better
If you feel unhappy, you've probably made it too easy.
I handed my credit card over the marble hotel lobby desk.
“What’s another $170 at this point?” I thought.
It was the day before our wedding, and I was excited about our decision to stay an extra night after the big day. Still, part of me thought, “It would have been easier if we’d just eloped.”
But let me tell you, I am so happy we didn’t elope. I’m so grateful we didn’t pick the easy route.
The memories, the magical moments of that day, were so much better than easy.
And in the next three minutes—I’m going to convince you why you should stop trying to make your life easier, and start making it better.
Here’s my theory.
If you want to live a happy, fulfilled, exciting life — you’ll keep trying to make it better. You’ll look at your goals and ask, “How could I make that happen?”
If you want to live an easy life, you’ll keep cutting challenge out of it. You’ll stop pushing yourself simply because it feels hard. You’ll look at your dreams and tell yourself, “I can’t do that because of…”
A better life means moving toward the version of you that you want to be.
An easy life means saying no to challenge now—and making life harder for Future You.
Let me give you some real-life examples.
It would have been easier to not have a wedding.
If my fiancé (now husband, thank you very much!) and I had eloped, we would have saved hours upon hours of time.
No venue visits.
No back-and-forth emails with 78 loved ones.
Not to mention tens of thousands of dollars.
It would have been easier, but I am 100% positive that what we did was better.
We threw the big party. We invited everyone we love. We skipped the money-spending traditions that we didn’t care about, and splurged on the parts we really wanted.
Goodbye, real flowers, lavish centrepieces, and party favours.
Hello, videographer, custom tuxedo, and an extra hotel night.
Spending all that time and money was worth every single penny for the memories we created. The laughs we had, the teary-eyed moments, the hilarious dance moves—it was all worth it.
It wasn’t easier. But it made life better.
It’s easier to not exercise.
Even the most jacked fitness influencer will tell you: it’s easier to do nothing.
Be lazy. Skip the gym. Sit all day long.
Imagine how much more I could do with my time if I didn’t walk 8,000 steps, stretch, lift weights, or eat like I cared.
It’d be easier to just…not.
But…easier for who?
Today Me, who just doesn’t feel like getting up and doing it?
Or Future Me, who’s gonna have to live in a weaker, more painful body?
Definitely not easier for the people who love me—and are gonna have to take care of me because I didn’t.
So, sure—it’s easier to ignore your health.
But it gives you a worse life. And it gives the people around you more burden than you realize.
A better life is being able to go wherever you want, because you can physically get there.
Able to pull your body up in a life-saving situation.
To feel proud of what your body can do—not just what it looks like.
And honestly? Once you learn to connect with your body through movement, it becomes easy.
But that’s an article for another day.
It’s easier to not work on your relationship with you.
When my husband and I started dating after 15 years of friendship, I was brutally aware of all the baggage I’d carried into past relationships.
I’d lied to previous partners. I performed. I’d expect them to hurt me, then be devastated when they did.
With Alex, I said to myself, "None of that this time, Kelsey.”
I dropped any quality about myself I wasn’t proud of.
Think about choices you make that you wouldn’t want other people to know about.
Saying something behind someone’s back that I wouldn’t say to their face? Done.
Talking negatively about my body. No more.
Misleading or lying to my partner? Never again.
It would have been easier not to do that. I could have just stayed the same. Just stuck to my stories about why I am how I am, and that’s just how it is.
But that doesn’t feel good. What I did…does.
It feels good to say that I’ve worked for this version of me.
It’s feels better to become someone I’m proud of. Not someone stuck in, “Oh, well!”
I don’t want to live an, “Oh, well!” life.
I want to live a life with big efforts and big rewards.
One where I have the freedom to work and exercise and travel when I want to.
I want the health, wealth, and relationship.
I want a life worth sharing. One that shows people what’s possible when you choose better over easier.
— Kelsey “Better Beats Easier” Schaefer.
Personal update:
Alex and I will be creating videos about bring our dream to life: buying land, building a tropical greenhouse, and growing our own food. A tropical oasis in the middle of cold-ass Canada!
We’re starting to talk to some banks this week about funding options.
Follow along on this Substack or Alex’s YouTube channel!
PS: we also got married this past weekend, which is why this newsletter is a week late
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