The deeper meaning of Wisława Szymborska’s poem “Hard Life with Memory” is the struggle to live in the present while remembering the past, and the poet uses some interesting poetic devices, especially personification, to explore and present that meaning. Let's look at this in more detail.

In the poem, the speaker describes her conflict with her memory. She presents her memory as a person, striving for the speaker’s constant attention. “She wants me to attend her voice nonstop,” the speaker remarks. The speaker, however, is not fully listening to her memory. She fidgets and fusses, attending to other things during the day.

Memory does her best to stir up old events, letters, and snapshots. She “peoples” the speaker’s views with those who have gone before. The speaker likes that in memory she is younger, but the mirror tells her something else now. Sometimes the speaker dismisses memory by merely shrugging, and memory gets angry (notice the continued personification here). Then memory “takes revenge by hauling out old errors.”

If she could, memory would claim the speaker completely as her own, but the speaker has other plans, like “today's sun, / clouds in progress, ongoing roads.” These symbolize the present, the speaker's current life and activities. There are times when the speaker even wants to separate from memory, yet she knows that she cannot. Memory is part of her.

Herein lies the conflict. The past and the present vie for the speaker’s attention, and she must walk the line between them, remembering the past yet still living in the present. It is a struggle that every human being faces.

As for a global issue, memory can be collective as well. The world as a whole has to balance the past and what it can learn from that past with the present and how it must cope with today.