Easy vs Ease vs Opportune

When I works... I works hard.

When I sits... I sits loose.

When I thinks... I falls asleep.

Easy vs Ease vs Opportune

I've been mulling the differences among these three.

Easy

Easy is effortless, limpid, lazy. It's opposite is difficult, strenuous, arduous.

Between hard and easy, always pick the easy. Right? Well...

A lot of what we want to do in life may not lie along the easiest path. What if we want to see the world from yonder ridge? What if we want to visit a distant friend? What if we want to live afloat, and must therefore acquire a vessel and the skills to sail her?

Often, we choose what is not easy, and never look back.

But short term hard often becomes long term easy.

When I first started sailing - for the first year - I would precede each day's venture with a liquid while on the bucket. 

Leaving anchor, weaving through a fleet of moored boats, safely exiting harbor and returning, a day exposed to wind and weather I'd not yet learned to anticipate... the responsibility of it all. 

All these turned my bowels to water... not easy!

And then, one day sailing from harbor, I realized I'd surpassed my moment of gastric distress. Come to think of it, it had been a while. Without realizing it, what had been so frightening and hard - struggling to learn to walk the walk - was now... well...
 
Easy.


Ease

It's the verb I'm thinking of; to ease. To slide, flow, drift. Be in the moment. Centered. Calm. A stillness that has nothing to do with motion or it's lack.

One can ease one's way, I feel, regardless of whether or not the path is easy. 

When things are easy, of course, it's easy to ease one's way. But when it's hard - in the teeth of the gale or the anchor drags or even when there's just a few too many people around - one can still ease along.

Breathe, deep and regular. Relax muscles which have tensed to no purpose. Look ahead but don't worry about it. Attend to what's needful in this moment.

Ease your way out of trouble. Ease your way along.


Opportune

The Opportune Moment.

This is the moment we've all been waiting for! Making hay when the sun shines; strike while the iron is hot; take a stitch in time to save nine. Such sayings may sound trite, but carry a cargo of wisdom if we listen with open minds! There's a reason they've been repeated down the long years.

I mean, it's all well and good to choose a harder path on the road to heart's desire. But if we ignore the Opportune Moment, our efforts redouble. We may be thwarted, exhausted... our hearts denied.

The Opportune Moment is like a temporal, Ockham's Razor; a concept which winnows the possible moments of action down to the one that matters. That moment where the stars align; that cusp between hard and easy...

That moment to ease on down the road.