I always thought that there's some stuff that looks hard in chess, but is actually not so difficult. Things like sacrifice lines. Those feel complicated, but the calculation eventually becomes pretty deterministic.

The things that don't look hard to beginners (because there's no immediate danger) are usually questions around activity and positional advantages. Should you get rid of your opponent's central knight, but give them your long-range bishop? Should you take with the pawn in the center and explode the position or bring the rook behind it first?

Those are the truly hard things in chess. Maybe this changes if you're a high-level player, but I'm not.