by Mark Schwartz

Created on: June 30, 2009

There's no inherent virtue in doing something difficult when it could be done easily. Taking the easy way out routinely leads to improvement, and the desire to take the easy way out has fueled many advances throughout human history.

Our economic system, capitalism, is designed to reward people for taking the easy way out. Most of the great inventions patented in our country were those that helped make things easier, and if an invention was useful enough and helpful enough, it likely made the patent holder a lot of money. Bill Gates is one of the wealthiest men in America because he didn't want to have to run program in DOS all the time. He devised a new and easier way of accessing and using programs on a computer. Was he taking the easy way out? Undoubtedly. As his invention proved more and more useful and helpful, he was rewarded by the marketplace with millions and millions in sales and profit for his company. Of course, coming up with the idea, testing it, and properly marketing it all require hard work, but it was the consumers' desire to take the easy way out that fueled the sales of his invention. In short, when something works and makes things easy, the free enterprise system rewards it. This reinforces the idea that taking the easy way out is smart.

Even without an economic reward, people often want to take the easy way out. Many health advances were not made for the desire for profit, but for the improvement of humanity. There's no virtue in suffering from an easily curable disease. For years, people lived in fear of tuberculosis, and even changed their living habits (activities, locations, etc.) to reduce that fear. Several scientists in different fields devised ways to understand and eventually cure the disease. If it wasn't for the desire to take the easy way out (i.e. curing the disease rather than simply putting up with it or taking drastic measures to fight it), this significant medical advance would never have happened.

Are there times when taking the easy way out is not the best? Sure. When taking the easy way out hurts other people, it could be considered immoral to do so. However, often times it is difficult to know if your behavior will be harmful to others. Things that help you sometimes end up hurting someone else. For example, failing to declare all your income on your taxes may seem like a victimless crime, but that lost revenue needs to be made up for somewhere along the line. Someone else either pays more taxes to make up for it, or receives fewer services. Also, sometimes taking the easy way out is just a way to delay having to make an unpleasant decision. When you avoid telling someone bad news, for example, it may just make the situation worse over time, which might get you off the hook but make their life even more miserable. It's hard to imagine a doctor, for example, failing to tell someone they have a disease just to avoid the unpleasant task of breaking the bad news to them. In that sense, taking the easy way out could be considered smart in the short term, but potentially harmful in the long term.

On the whole, though, we live in a country that rewards people for taking the easy way out. Without that incentive and the resulting advancements from it, a lot of the great things about our society wouldn't exist. Taking the easy way out often leads to innovation, and, in America, innovation is smart.

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