We live in an instant gratification society.  We’ve been conditioned, by television, to believe that the most difficult problems in life can be solved in one hour; minus about 20 minutes of commercial interruptions.  

Our attention spans have also become frighteningly short.  TV commercials that used to run for a full minute, now last 15 seconds; and besides, who watches them anyhow? We’re too busy channel surfing to actually concentrate on one thing.

The upshot is that most people won’t work through a problem, or even do what it takes to get what they want. If something is the least bit difficult to do or implement, the average person just doesn’t bother or takes the easy way out.  In fact, most people would rather put forth minimum effort and be mediocre, rather than have to work hard for a long period of time in order to be successful.

The problem is that every action you take in your life has consequences, both good and bad, which can affect you years down the road.  Unfortunately, most people don’t think long term or consider what the consequences of their decision could be.  My 18 year old son is just now learning the hard way that the “Easy Way Out,” is very often the path of MOST resistance.   

My son, Michael is 18 years old and has just completed his freshman year of college at Western Carolina University.  While he did well academically, he was very unhappy at the school and wants to transfer.  However, the actions Michael took, starting in high school, have made it difficult for him to transfer to the school of his choice.  

Michael is a very smart young man whose philosophy in school has always been: “If I can do next to nothing and get a B, why kill myself just to get an A?”  Unfortunately, this philosophy reflected itself in his high school grades.  He graduated with a B average, placing him barely in the top 50% of his class.  This decision limited his choices of colleges, though a good SAT score did help him (but not enough, as you’ll see later).  

He chose Western Carolina for a few reasons: it had the major he wanted (Sports Management); it was easy to get into; and, the application could have been filled out by a rhesus monkey (no essay required): Again, the easy way out.  Western was the only college Michael applied to or visited.  

Michael sent in his application to Western in late August of 2004 and was accepted no more than two weeks later in early September; the beginning of his senior year in high school.  At that point he decided he was done with high school and would just coast through senior year.  

Now let me show you how each decision and action you take has consequences on your future:

• Not trying harder in high school hurt his chances of getting into his top two choices.  When you transfer after your freshman year, they still look at high school performance.
• One of his top choices turned him down because he hadn’t taken a college level math course.  He could have taken that course in his senior year of high school, but decided to take The Easy Way Out.
• He decided not to visit any other school and now will most likely be attending a school next year simply as a stop gap till he can transfer to the school he wants.
• He did well on the SAT test but only took it once, since he figured that was more than enough to get into Western.  However, if he would have taken the test a couple of more times, no doubt his score would have been even better, maybe even good enough to get into his school of choice.  Again, do the easy, not the hard.