I think one thing that got in the way for me when trying to be more disciplined, more motivated,
get things done, overcome my bad habits, and really plug into my own life and actually
work at living a good life instead of escaping: it's that I had this
separation between work and fun. Fun is something you do after work.
It's something you do instead of working. You work because you have to,
because of the bad things that happen if you don't work, because you want to achieve certain things.
But it's not fun. Fun is something that you do instead of work.
But one of the most powerful things that I've found is this merger of work and fun.
To actually find a way to have fun in whatever I'm doing.
And it started off almost comical. I mean, it just seemed like it was
such a stretch to imagine how could these boring tasks that I'm doing, whatever my paid job is,
just these routine tasks that I'm doing for somebody else's benefit in order to make money.
And I just couldn't find any way to take it seriously that it was actually fun.
But over time, gradually, as I start to feel more control over my own work, my own business,
this feeling of I'm doing this for myself. This is part of my project, what I want
to do in life. This is building
towards a future that I want to have. And I enjoy being able to do this work that I do.
That changed my whole attitude towards the day, towards the working day.
To actually want to sit down at my desk and get down to business
is something I never had when I was younger. It was always something that I felt I was
forced to do, I had to do it, but I couldn't wait to be done.
So I don't know exactly how to make this shift, but I think it can start
with even just the smallest things. Even just the tiniest shift of being
interested in my work. Interpreting it in a way where it's not
something that I'm forced to do, but it's something that I want to do.
And I think one of the biggest keys to this good mindset is simply not wanting to be anywhere else.
Just accepting that this is my life, and it's OK. That it's not that I'd rather be doing
something else, that I'm doing this work because I have to, but I'd rather not.
But no, instead, I am doing this work, and this is the best thing to do.
This is where I want to be. I don't want to be anywhere else.
Now, it's not easy to get to that point. It took me a long time, gradually.
But even just little hints in that direction started to get things moving in that direction.
And another side of it that I've just been thinking about is that
it's not just a matter of OK, I'm going to have fun at work.
I want to combine work and fun, because that makes life more fun.
But not only that, it also makes me work better.
Having fun makes you stronger. Having fun makes you do everything better.
Having fun, this feeling that I'm not waiting for my chance to be done and take a break.
I'm not waiting to do something else, waiting for this all to be over,
wishing I was somewhere else, looking forward to the weekend, looking forward to the vacation.
But actually this is my life right now, and I'm gonna have fun.
It's like saying I insist on having fun. If I'm gonna do this thing for hours and
hours, I'm gonna find a way to make it fun. Maybe a certain kind of lightness, playfulness,
in the attitude, no matter what we're doing. A certain kind of a lightness
and playfulness that makes it fun. And I think we've all seen people like this,
who maybe they're doing hard work, they're doing difficult work, but they just have
kind of a light and playful attitude, where they they find the humour in the moment,
and they just find a way to make things fun just by their attitude.
It could be some people may be just very cheerful in general.
Some people have a certain sense of humour, where they kind of interpret things,
maybe see the absurdity in what's going on, and just find a way to see the joke in everything.
And some people just bring that sense of playfulness to whatever they do.
And that, besides just being fun, it also,
I think, makes them better workers. It makes them achieve better things.
It makes life overall better. It makes you stronger to be having fun.
Because if you see work as just this thing you've got to grind it out, and you could
you could apply a lot of willpower and say OK, I'm gonna grind it out, and then you do.
But it takes so much of that extra energy to kind of make yourself do it, and you grind through it.
But when you see those people that are just doing work with a sense of fun,
it's like there's an effortlessness to it. There's a sense that they don't
even have to try that hard. Even though they're working hard,
but they don't have to kind of force themselves to be in that state of mind.
They're just enjoying it. They're enjoying where
they are and what they're doing. And that saves all that energy.
All that energy that we'd have to use to apply our willpower to make us do difficult things,
when you kind of smoothly roll with it with that sense of fun, it frees up all that energy, and
that makes us stronger. It makes me think of some people,
I read the stories of extreme exploration, and people going through extreme adventures,
like exploring Antarctica, the Shackleton expedition, where they were stranded on the ice,
and all the horrible things they went through. But there was something about that crew, that they
had a sense of playfulness, and they found it fun. I mean, they were somehow- I mean, obviously,
maybe the word fun is is a stretch. But they were on a great adventure,
and horrible things happened to them, but they just had this sense of humour and
playfulness that it seemed to give them strength. It seemed to give them this power to withstand
some of the suffering that is unbelievable and maybe would be impossible to bear
without having a good sense of humour. It makes me think of the climbing of Mount
Everest, when the the Everest expedition, there were all these different mountaineers that had
their shot at getting to the top, but the name we all remember: Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay.
These guys, they're the ones that made it to the top.
And when you look into Edmund Hillary, that guy just loved being there.
He loved camping. He loved hanging out in a tent.
He loved walking around a mountain and just spending time on a mountainside,
and just the simple things. He felt comfortable, it seemed.
He just felt comfortable and happy doing what he was doing.
And that made him stronger. That gave him greater endurance, I'm imagining,
over the people who they were tough, they were gritty, but they had to kind of force their way
through it with willpower and endurance. But if you can find some way to have that
sense of fun in whatever you do, it seems to me like it just makes everything better.
So I would love to hear from you about how can we make this? How can we bring out this sense of fun?
What are some of the tools we can use to bring out this sense of lightness, playfulness, and
a good attitude, so that we can really work at our best and live at our best?