It's interesting that sometimes the paths that APPEAR at first glance to be the quickest and easiest actually turn out to be nothing of the sort. For instance, the Bible discusses the allure of the world of sin and how it appears to be so wonderful on the surface, but it's actually the WORST path you can take.
Also, I found out in my study of physics that Snell's law determines how light bends in order to find the quickest path, because the actual straight-line path available may NOT be the path of shortest time.
But before I learned this from spiritual literature or science, it probably first became apparent to me from the world of video games. The Mario games in particular.
I quickly learned the warp zones in these video games, back when I was in elementary school. And I wanted to beat the games so badly that I always took the warp zones to reach the end as quickly as I could, skipping all the unnecessary parts that could kill me before I got there. And I never could understand why I couldn't beat the games.
Over time I finally realized that if you DON'T take the warp zones, there are lots of opportunities to power up along the way, so that when you do reach the end, you have a lot more tools at your disposal. Multiple P-Wings for the tough World 8 levels in Mario 3 and things like that. And the Gremlins 2 video game was similar. If I didn't put in the password to the last level right away, I could have a power pack and extra lives available for use.
Also, I realized the hard way while playing Streetfighter 2 that you can win WITHOUT using only the two strongest, but slowest to recover from button attacks (fierce and roundhouse). When my friend beat me using the weaker button attacks like jabs, I actually ACCUSED him of cheating because even though the game came with those buttons they shouldn't have ever been used! Talk about embarrassing!
So sometimes the path that immediately appears to be the quickest and easiest is actually neither of those. Video games taught me that.
I also learned that sometimes you have to make something more difficult immediately in order to make it easier later. That happens a lot in math. You have to do uglier, more complicated stuff to your existing equation in order for the right stuff to (almost magically) cancel out.
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