Recently I was working on an piece of writing which felt like dragging a large stone, pointless and painful. I had worked on this writing for weeks, thought about it endlessly and yet, when I was working on this, it felt like such a chore. At one stage, typing even one letter of the alphabet seemed like a days work. Did I have to do this? No. Did I like doing it? No. Was this going to help me in anyway, financial or even fame? No. So why was I doing it when the answers were a resounding no? I reflected about how pig-headed I was at times. I figured out that the only reason why I was doing this was because I had started it- and so I had felt, it ought to be finished. Don’t all the self-help books say, finish what you started?! But what a stupid reason this can be.

So here was my big lesson. Certainly things or project that we start and don’t finish can offer a big lesson to us about why we don’t like doing something. They can tell us what we like doing- because we will for sure, bear the pain and finish something we love doing. It won’t feel like a chore, like a piece of stone dragging us down. Work will become play and play will become work. So if something is feeling like a stone, stop, and reflect. Only do it if you really enjoy it. Otherwise it is such a waste of your time- your life!

“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both.”

–L P Jacks