The etymology of difficult leads us to the Latin word difficĭlis. The concept is used as an adjective to describe what presents difficulties, inconveniences or hindrances.
For example: “It is very difficult to export our products due to bureaucratic obstacles”, “It will be difficult for me to take vacations this year: the truth is that I have not been able to save enough money”, “My godmother gave me a philosophy book which is quite difficult for me to understand, but I will try to live up to it”.
Difficult is the opposite of easy: while something difficult has impediments or barriers, what is easy is simple, easy or comfortable. Suppose that, in a soccer match, a team defeats its rival 3-2 after being down two goals. The winning team had to make an effort and fight hard to reverse the result: that is why a journalist can say that it was a difficult game for the winning team. On the other hand, with the same logic, an 8-0 victory constitutes an easy game for the winner.
Difficult cannot be solved or solved quickly, unlike easy. 8034 x 4516 + (5118/8361) x 741 – 51982 is a difficult calculation that requires a calculator for most people. On the other hand, 4 x 3 is an easy calculation, which is part of the multiplication tables of four and three, something that we all learn by heart in elementary school.
A difficult person, on the other hand, is one who is sullen, sparing, or asocial. That is why it is difficult to establish a relationship with her or even communicate. Difficult subjects are characterized by bad character and recurrent anger. An employee can claim that his boss is difficult if he is always in a bad mood and talks contemptuously or aggressively towards the workers.
This doesn’t mean that difficult people don’t have a good side or that they aren’t worth relating to. It is known that many of the “geniuses” of all disciplines do not shine precisely because of their social skills, since they have dedicated much of their time and energy to cultivating the field in which they stand out; for this reason, stories describing these individuals as “difficult” are common.
It is important to point out that the degree of difficulty of a challenge does not generate the same reaction in everyone: while some systematically avoid everything that requires an effort, no matter how small, others pursue great challenges, since they find in them a way to take advantage of their abilities and surpass their own achievements.
If we think of a highly demanding discipline at a technical level, such as lyrical singing, great singers usually choose repertoires that require hard work of vocal and theoretical preparation, to overcome all kinds of challenges, such as: singing long phrases without being able to stop to breathe, memorize very complex melodies, full of ornaments and modulations, pronounce vowels and consonants in very high-pitched areas of the voice and make jumps of two octaves or more.
For a person who loves personal challenges, the more difficult a project, the more interesting it is, and vice versa. What sense does it make for a passionate professional in his field to refuse challenges ? If we choose the easy way, we deny ourselves the opportunity to grow intellectually and to develop ourselves. Unfortunately, society tends to comfort, and the media try to implant in the public the fear of effort, in pursuit of an attraction for situations and processes that reach us practically resolved, without major complications, ready for consumption.
