The Hard and the Easy

Relationships are hard. Family is hard. Friends are hard. Stuffed animals are easy, they're always there, never talk back, never disagree...they never hurt us.
I was listening to the radio today and I heard a report about these little robotic stuffed toys that are supposed to be coming out soon, along with other artificial comforters. In modern culture we have this tendency to run after whatever is easiest. We make our life easier with all kinds of appliances, with cars, with games and distractions, and with the internet. We exchange real relationships for idle comforts, whether they be food, little robotic friends, pornography...whatever. We try to make things easier.
In doing this we miss out of what life is really about. Life is about pain, growth, getting through hard times together and coming out the other side better and stronger than before. The problem is that's hard, it's not comfortable, not fun. But then life isn't supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be hard, to make us something that we weren't before, and we don't want that.
It's an easy thing to do, to give up on the hard and the painful and find comfort. We focus on what is familiar, friendly, comforting. I think we tend to focus to much on what we think we know rather than on taking the time to learn what we don't know. We have this tendency to replace everything valuable around us with these things that are easy and comfortable...its not healthy.
That's just it though, in this age where physical health is so highly touted and all we have to do is 'workout thirty minutes a day' we ignore the healthiest thing of all, relationships.
Just a thought.