Paradox of an Easier Option

Given two options to accomplish the same goal, one harder and one easier, is it really a choice? 96% of people summit Mt. Everest with bottled oxygen. Yet the question is one of the first few that always comes up in talks of the world's tallest mountain. It seems many perceive the choice to be somewhat trivial. The truth is, the choice is so obvious that 96% of people take the easy way out. Is it really a choice?

Is an easier option really a choice? From my time watching people I have noticed we prefer the easy processes. The choices in life are not take the highway (common way) or take the winding dirt road (the difficult way). The choices are take the highway or take the poorly marked grade IV 5.8 AI 2 with rockfall and avalanche danger. The question becomes, is that really even an option?

The solution is to turn the question on it's head. "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." JFK

The paradox of an easier choice is not really a paradox, it is an opportunity to be set apart. An easier choice is an opportunity to show that the easily attainable is mundane. The difficult path, that is reserved for the few convicted and tormented who hold themselves to a higher standard than the world.