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[…] is one of the last lines in a blog post on homeschooling by Penelope Trunk. She’s a career coach and homeschooler. More importantly, there is always a […]
Yep, I think that we naturally feel resistance to doing the things that most fulfill us. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because of social programming that discourages the sincere expression of who we are. Torture seems like a sick way to attain a sense of accomplishment, but the concept certainly does hold true in my own experience. Although, I have to say this: While torture can be torture, it can also be euphoric (but only in spurts). The big reward is always the knowledge that you survived another round and maybe helped someone else by your efforts.
I like the running analogy. For me distance running (> 10 miles) taught me a lot about trusting internal feedback. When running there are very few times when your body is telling you it’s a good idea and ‘this feels great!’. This doesn’t change with practice. You just learn how to distract your mind a bit. But when you’re done you know you’ve earned it. Hard to distill into words but if you quit a couple times and persevere a couple times you understand the difference.
I also like the running analogy. I hate running, but I did it a lot in high school and college. And the whole time I told myself “one foot in front of the other” and other truisms I had heard for not giving up. I never got good at running, but I got good at not stopping when things are hard. It makes me think maybe every kid should run a 10K to know how to keep going.
Penelope
I know a lot of people that equate challenge with fun. I fly airplanes, it’s hard as hell. Direction, physics, weather, none of it comes easy to me in the slightest and nothing is a better time for me. Writing is my zen. Also hard as hell, but it is awesome to complete a piece I like.
I know lots of people that have been married many years, sure there were challenges, but yes, for many of us, there is no greater joy, fun, good time than going through life passionately in love with their life partner. It’s fun, it is wonderful, and I would say sometimes easy, sometimes hard, but that a great relationship makes things a lot easier to laugh about in life. And yah we should all be with someone that makes us laugh. I am in that 20 year category and I don’t care if it sounds cliche: Love a person with integrity who makes you laugh and things work out.
I agree we need to teach our children and each other that true joy often comes from a lot of hard work. This can be hard when they see so many in our society miserable by overworking/workaholism though. Public school-race to nowhere stuff trickles over into all hard work and no joy in adult life. Yuck.
Your mention of volleyball and the theme of fulfillment made me think of Michael Jordan. He’s much more than just a super talented ball player and now businessman. He’s driven to excel. I think it’s in his DNA or something. An inspiration to many people and a great asset to the game of basketball.
Anyways, his quote mentions fulfillment – “The game is my wife. It demands loyalty and responsibility, and it gives me back fulfillment and peace.”
“The more you suffer, the more it shows you really care.”
The Offspring
I thought about this lyric a lot in med school.
Wow. This gave me a LOT to think about. Thank you :)
11am and already having a rough day at work. Thanks for the amazing post Penny this is exactly what I needed to read : )
From one of my favorite backgrounds:
“No rest is worth anything except the rest that is earned”
As a life-long quitter trying to reform, this was a great post to motivate me! thx.
I just want to say that there’s a lot to be said for quitters. Someone who worked at being extremely talented also ended up quitting everything else. So maybe we should all strive to be constructive quitters. But quitting is an important element of fulfillment, I think.
Penelope
It’s fun when no one has expectations of you and you don’t have expectations of yourself.
That is the case in my life.
I love writing because I don’t have to and when I do write I get the great conversations I crave. I love volleyball because I don’t have to and when do I always prove brains over brawn and bonus, it’s good exercise. I actually think my relationship with my boyfriend has improved because my mother is no longer here to judge…
So, maybe the reality is that we can want fun things as long as no one is pestering us about it. As I write this Richard Feynman comes to mind. When being a nuclear physicist was removed from the equation he had fun with physics http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~kilcup/262/feynman.html
Hi Penelope,
My natural inclination would be to agree with your premise. I have lived my entire life believing that the things that are hard are the only things worth doing, and I have a very long list of blood sweat and tears accomplishments to prove it.
However, lately I’ve started to question that logic and wonder if in my relentless focus on taking on new challenges, I’ve missed out on a part of life that is equally important in terms of fulfillment-having fun, taking it easy, and not having to think.
It is true that overcoming a challenge leads to a sense of accomplishment. However accomplishment isn’t the end all, be all, in terms of fulfillment. There is another side to that equation that is equally important.
What do you think?