The joy of effort

Do you dream of lying on the beach, chilling and taking it easy? Do you believe that this will make you happy?

I hate to break it to you, but it will not.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi tells us in his ground breaking book Flow, that human beings completely misjudge what will make us happy. We tend to imagine that vegging out in front of the TV and engaging in other leisure activities will make us happy. But it does not. Surprisingly, meaningful work, which we sometimes run away from, does.

Csikszentmihalyi says: "we have a paradoxical situation: On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative, and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore they tend to feel more sad, weak, dull, and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure."

Pretty strange, right? We hurry through activities which are good for us towards those which bring us no satisfaction!!!

Let us remind ourselves of this the next time we are dreaming of the weekend or that vacation.

Let us instead get present to, and find satisfaction in, meaningful work.