how can it be this hard?

[ephemera]

so yes I am a noob however I have spent 3 hours today trying to learn how to do nothing more than add a texture to a sphere!! Nowhere have I found a simple explanation in layman terms. Everything I have looked at seems to have some outrageously complicated 30 step technique all of which I never can get past the 3rd step! Surely it cannot be this difficult to do something so ridiculously simple. How does anyone ever learn this software if its this cryptic? Can i not just click on my sphere object and then click on a texture?? Where are the instructions? Please help before I get completely frustrated and quit maya altogether. Thanks :)