There’s a Modest Mouse line that always catches me. In the song “Bury Me With It,” on their album Good News for People Who Love Bad News, lead singer Isaac Brock borderline screeches, “Life handed us a paycheck, we said, ‘We worked harder than this!'”

And life really does feel that way sometimes, as if it’s paying us minimum wage while we’re working eight-day weeks. But why is it so difficult?

Here are some thoughts:

• Life is hard because it’s not fair, because I said so, and because you have to finish your veggies before you can have dessert.
• Life is hard because Darwin was right about that whole survival of the fittest thing.
• Life is hard because it’s so very long. And because it’s so very short.
• Life is hard because we only get one shot — or do we?
• Life is hard because “The Boss” is always out of the office.
• Life is hard because The Universe runs on a schedule … and it’s not our schedule.
• Life is hard because drugs have side effects.
• Because women are crazy. And because men are crazy.
• Because nobody gets out alive.
• Because we perceive it that way.
• Because dying is the easiest thing to do and the hardest thing to understand.
• Because every moment brings something new into the world, whether you’re ready for it or not.
• Because humans have yet to invent wedgie-proof underwear, self-folding laundry, and the robotic baby-sitter. (The Jetsons really had it made.)
• Life is hard because, as Billy Joel once wrote, “You can’t stop the falling of the rain.”
• Life is hard because we’re told all about Happily Ever After, and then we come to realize why they’re called Fairy Tales.
• Life is hard because it’s not like the movies.
• Because sometimes it is like the movies — the ones that put you to sleep or make you throw up your $10 bag of popcorn.
• Because the amount of things to do always exceeds the time in which to do them.
• Because we are human. Because we were born with the ability to think rationally, and because with that ability comes the paradox that rational thought is often the most irrational part of our being.
• Life is hard because there’s no Official Handbook, no Owner’s Manual, no Troubleshooting Guide to get us through it. Ok, really there are 10,000 Official Handbooks, and they all say something different.
• Life is hard because you can’t hurry love — no! You just have to wait. And because you can’t get that song out of your head now. (You’re welcome.)
• Because it’s like that Alanis Morrissette song, “Ironic,” which ironically has less irony than it should.
• Because you only run out of toilet paper when you need it the most. (Now that’s ironic … don’t ya think?)
• Life is hard because you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. And because knowing that, you’ll still try for both.
• Life is hard because you can go where you’ve been, but you can’t be where you were.
• Life is hard because you will care deeply about something, and the whole world won’t give a damn. And because the whole world will value things that to you seem insignificant. And because, in both cases, you’ll feel like the whole world’s winning.
• Life is hard because we want to know what we’re doing here, and we can’t even figure out what we’re doing for dinner.
• Because life starts from Somewhere, ends Somewhere else, and goes Somewhere in between … but trying to find Somewhere will get you Nowhere.
• Because, as Robert J. Hastings once wrote, “we are driven mad by regret over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow … twin thieves who would rob us of today.”
• Life is hard because it’s easy for us to conceptualize ideals and (almost) impossible to live up to them.
• Because sex sells … but it’s usually worth less than you paid for it.
• Because no matter how many times you’re told the world doesn’t revolve around you, this little voice inside your head whines, “By golly, it should!”
• Because sometimes there’s nobody there for you, and because other times all you want is to be alone.
• Because the opposite sex is usually on the opposite page, and because the same sex isn’t for everyone.
• Because we are different from each other.
• Because we’re all the same.
• Life is hard because, as the Beatles sang, “We all want to change the world,” the problem being that “We’d all love to see the plan.”
• Life is hard because people say you have to wear clothes.
• Life is hard because love is a game at which many people cheat.
• Life is hard because someone has to win and someone has to lose … unless there’s a tie. (But who wants a tie?)
• Because most of us can’t sing a solid note unless we’re in the shower.
• Because God may have rested on the seventh day, but our responsibilities don’t.
• Because the things in life which matter most are often the easiest to take for granted.
• Because the things which matter least are often the ones we most desire.
• Because sometimes you find yourself in a room full of silent people, and you can’t hold your fart in any longer.

But you know what really makes life hard? You know the most difficult thing about it?

It’s so damn beautiful.

It truly is. Painfully beautiful, like a Dali painting. Incomprehensible and magical and real and surreal. As tough as it can be — and my God, can it be tough — there’s some intangible thing that always keeps us coming back for more. The most difficult thing about life is that we can never get enough of it. Maybe that’s not true for everyone, but it is for me and for assuredly countless others.

Life’s not hard because of the challenges we face, the bills we have to pay, or the myriad things that bother us on a daily basis.

Life is hard because we’re dying to live.

Contact Sam Rosenthal at samrose24@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter: @BackwardsWalker

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