What If Life Were Easy? Lessons from Billy Joel's "Vienna"

This week’s blog post came together a little too perfectly. 

I enjoyed writing about Superman last week, and I was looking for ways to integrate another piece of pop culture into this week’s post. 

I knew I wanted to write about living life in “easy mode,” but I couldn’t quite think of an example that fit.

Then, I paused for a moment to listen to the song that happened to be playing at the time. It was “Vienna” by Billy Joel.

It was essentially the perfect song to relate to the topic.

I had to laugh at myself because finding the song for a blog post about being easy came, well, easily. 

Anyways, let’s dive into it.

Take the Phone Off the Hook

“Vienna” is my second favorite song by Billy Joel.

“Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” is surely my favorite, and that’s not up for debate. It’s like three songs in one. It’s the ultimate bang for your buck.

Where “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” never fails to get me fired up, “Vienna” on the other hand never fails to rock my world. 

It’s a song that forces my presence.

I can’t tell you how many times it’s been a song that I’ve just needed to hear. It slows me down and embraces me like a lyrical hug.

According to Billy, the song is inspired by a conversation he had with his father.

Slow down, you crazy child / You're so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you're so smart / Tell me why are you still so afraid? Mm
Where's the fire, what's the hurry about? / You'd better cool it off before you burn it out
You've got so much to do / And only so many hours in a day, hey
But you know that when the truth is told /That you can get what you want or you can just get old
You're gonna kick off before you even get halfway through, ooh / When will you realize Vienna waits for you?

The song starts strong with this first verse through the chorus. I think a lot of us can relate right away with the first line.

The idea Joel tries to get across is that we can rush and grind as much as we want, but is that what’s best for us?

Joel’s father suggests that whatever’s in your future is coming on its own timeline, and at worst, you run the risk of burning out before you can ever get where you’re going. 

I think this is a feeling a lot of people can relate to.

When we’re young, we feel this immense pressure to arrive. We feel the need to do hard things constantly to feel like we’re making any sense of progress.

We take the jobs that we think we should take, work the long hours we feel like we need to work to move up, and often don’t think much of it.

Where does this pressure come from? Is it self-imposed? Does it come from external sources like family, school, etc.? It’s probably a little bit of all those things.

We’re instilled with quotes and adages about hard work. Here’s one by Theodore Roosevelt: 

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.”

Now, I think there’s something to be said for hard work. Hard work oftentimes leads to great things. But to say nothing is worth doing unless it’s difficult? Clearly, Teddy never took a walk with a loved one or had a nice cup of coffee in the morning.

Sometimes, it’s worthwhile to simply slow down. Like with most things, there’s a balance to be struck.

What would it look like, though, if things didn’t always have to be hard?

What If This Were Easy?

Instead of feeling like the things we must do are impossible, what if we treated things as being easy?

This was an idea that came to me on two fronts.

First, I saw Ali Abdaal write about it in his weekly newsletter. He mentions reading it in Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman, a book about which I’ve previously written.

Ali inspired me to read (well, listen, but it’s the same thing – audiobooks count as reading!) the book, and that’s when I got exposed to the idea a second time.

Here’s a quote from Oliver in his book:

The New Age author Julia Rogers Hamrick once wrote a book, Choosing Easy World, in which she argues it’s as simple as repeating a mantra: ‘I choose to live in Easy World, where everything is easy.’ When some daunting challenge barrels into view, just decide that you’re going to experience it as easy instead. I realize that sounds like the worst kind of denial of human limitation, as if you could get your way merely by commanding the universe to fall in line with your desires. In fact, though, it can be surprisingly effective – because it functions not as a mystical command to the universe but as a reminder to yourself not to fall into the old habit of adding complications or feelings of unpleasant exertion where neither need exist.

At first, that mantra might sound a bit woo-woo, and maybe it is.

I choose to live in Easy World, where everything is easy.

Initially, the idea didn’t really resonate with me. Then Burkeman gave an example that really hammered home the idea. 

He was talking about planning a birthday party for his 4-year-old, a task he’d been putting off. I think many of us can relate to kicking a to-do down the road because you’ve built it up to be something massive in your head.

When Burkeman asked himself what birthday planning for a 4-year-old would actually look like, he realized that it was probably harder to mess up than do correctly. 

I mean how important will this event be in the long run? Do you remember your 4^th birthday party? All he really needed was cake, balloons, and other essentials. 

This idea of “Easy World” seemed to me to synthesize well with the message of “Vienna.” 

What if you didn’t force things? Make them bigger than they needed to be? Take your nose off the grindstone every now and then. Come up for air.

Maybe this was something I could apply in my own life. 

My Own Easy World

Since being exposed to this “Easy World” idea the second time, it’s really stuck with me. 

I find myself in a similar spot as Billy in his song. I hear that inner voice pushing myself to do more and more when it isn’t really necessary. If I take a weekend to relax, I feel like I’ve set myself back.

But maybe it doesn’t need to be so hard. 

A friend texted me to see if I wanted to go to a movie. I put off that text for a couple hours. I thought, “what if I don’t want to go to the movie when that time comes? What if I’m feeling stressed about something?”

To me, that’s hard mode. 

Easy mode would be like this. Do I mostly want to see this movie? Yes. If I really don’t feel like going when the time arrives, what am I out? Like $20. It’s not the end of the world.

I went to the movie, and I had a great time.

It happens in my creative work as well. I’ll have a goal to write for X minutes for example. But what if I’m not feeling great? What if I’m not going to put out my best stuff? That’s hard mode creeping in. 

Easy mode? I start the timer.  I sit down, and I just do it. Maybe it’s bad, maybe it’s not. If the writing is good or bad, I’m still going to edit it. It’s not like I’m going to publish it immediately. 

Honestly, that’s why I force myself to write a blog post every week. Because that’s easy mode. 

I could take weeks to fine tune a piece until every word is exactly right, but if I did that, I wouldn’t have written anything.

Instead, I tell myself I’m going to publish this piece sometime on Sunday, and I make peace with that. Come Monday morning at the latest, I move forward. 

Does that mean I just phone it in? No, of course not. I’m just trying to condition myself to not expect perfection before doing anything.

When the Truth Gets Told

“Vienna” by Billy Joel reminds me that I need to slow down, that I can’t expect to arrive all at once, and if I burn rubber for too long, I’m going to burn out.

“Easy mode” reminds me of that same idea. 

I can complicate every single facet of my life if I want. I can overcomplicate what I have for breakfast, what I wear, what time I get to work. Truly, the limits of my ability to overcomplicate things have no bounds.

But that’s a recipe for disaster. I feel terrible when I do that.

Instead, sometimes it’s nice to remind myself, “what if this were easy?” 

What if things were just a little lighter? Wouldn’t that be nice? 

It doesn’t mean that I don’t get to where I want to go. It just means that maybe I enjoy the ride a little bit more, even if it takes a little longer. I want to be able to sustain the journey.

Because Vienna is waiting. 

What’s one area of your life you’ve been making overly complicated? Can you simplify it into an easy task?

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