Making life a little easier

Have you ever attempted to make your life easier and made things worse, or am I alone in this? I was running last week and decided I didn't want to run downhill under the bridge and then uphill the other side. In avoiding the hill, I crossed the street and found out there was no sidewalk on that side of the bridge, just a two foot ledge with no railing and traffic whizzing by. After successfully walking across this, I found there was no side walk to get me to the bike trail, I had to walk 50 feet across the field. The field was full of pokey weeds that get in your socks and shoes and poke you. I had to sit down on the cement path and take both shoes and socks off and pick each pokey weed. This took longer and was much worse than running uphill would have been. I also got lazy on a 9 mile run and wanted to cut a mile off. Climbed up hill, jumped a fence only to find out I would have to cross 4 lanes of 70 mph traffic on the interstate. Back over the fence, down the hill and ran the rest of the way home.
I do this in other areas of my life too. In trying to avoid something that appears unpleasant, I make things harder. I have done this in relationships, finances, and at work. Untangling the mess I make trying to avoid something difficult is much worse than if I had just plowed forward and stayed on track. I am attempting to get some areas back on track, and it's not easy. Staying on budget is not easy. Fixing relationships that have hurts in them whether caused by you or to you is not easy. But avoiding them and or circumventing them is not the answer either. If God wants me to take a circuitous route around a problem, that's the way I should go. But if God wants me to meet it head on, then I better meet it head on. And trying to manipulate God into my plan instead of following his will never work out in my favor.
Isaiah 55:8-11 "I don't think the way you think. The way you work isn't the way I work. God's decree, for as the sky soars high above the earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don't go back until they've watered the earth, doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for the farmers and food for the hungry, so will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty handed. They'll do the work I sent them to do, they'll complete the assignment I gave them". I want to get it right the first time. Not try to get around it and then spend 15 minutes picking sharp weeds out of my shoes and socks. Invariably I will miss one and find it 50 yards down the trail and have to stop again. You would think I would stay on the path God has for me. I still wander off from time to time, and have to be shepherded back. I find comfort in the fact that I'm worth God pulling me back, and he doens't let me wander to far before I feel the tug to get back where I belong.