Is the ability to weasel your way out of hard work a virtue or a liability?
Pushing yourself to work harder is in no way a terrible thing. Up to a point, that is…
But it can easily tip over into where you measure ourselves by how hard we’re working. To the point where we feel bad if we’re not coming up to the levels expected.
Where we feel guilty if we find ourselves doing less. Where we feel whatever we’re doing somehow doesn’t ‘count’ if it’s not difficult.
This is a totally mixed up attitude.
Why work harder than you need to? It makes absolutely no sense. Who benefits? No-one!
If you can get the same result in less time, or with less effort then you should absolutely go for it.
The enlightened perspective is to avoid make things any more difficult than they need to be. That’s nothing more than efficiency in action.
So flip any guilt around. Embrace the fact that you can get it done quicker, or more easily. In fact, go out of your way to find easy ways to do things.
A great question to ask yourself all the time is: _”What would this look like if it were easy?”_ (Thanks to Tim Ferriss for this).
Then deliberately notice any areas where you’re already ahead — and celebrate them.
Even then, you’re still not quite done.
Make sure you use and enjoy the extra space you’ve won for yourself.
Just because you’ve done one thing in a simpler and easier way doesn’t mean your reward should be to heap even more stuff on your shoulders.
The purpose of life is not endless work. Instead, The point of work is to move you towards a position where you’re able to relax and enjoy life. (And, if you don’t happen to agree with that, remember that giving yourself that downtime leaves you better able to put in the hard work when it is required.)
There’s a caveat here, though. Don’t let your pursuit of ‘easy’ pull you away from what really matters.
There can be a temptation to chase simplicity by changing the target you’re aiming at. That’s fine as long as your alternative choice of target is sound — one that’s still fully aligned with your deeper aims.
But if your only aim is easy, then you can lose what makes the activity meaningful in the first place! If you sacrifice goals that your heart truly desires merely to make life easy then you’ve failed. It’s cheating yourself at the most fundamental level possible.
Don’t do that.
To paraphrase Einstein: Make your life as easy as possible; but no easier.
You shouldn’t be struggling and making life unnecessarily hard for yourself. But if you avoid everything that’s difficult then you’re probably sacrificing the very things you truly want.