Difficult then Easy

All things are difficult before they are easy. ~ Thomas Fuller

They call it a simple program,
simple but not easy, destruction
of self-centeredness required.
Tough, near-impossible —
to give up a lifelong obsession
with getting it right, finding willpower,
perfection. But little by slow
vision clears from moments of success,
from examples lived by peers.
Then, later – eons later? moments later? —
the unthinkable happens.
A dayful of sanity, of joy, of serenity
without even a passing thought
of the old obsessions, the life of hell,
the past.