Is work more valuable when it’s grueling?

Even when you don’t have a lot of choices, cameraderie, routine, and knowing that you’re providing for your family can make work more bearable. (Tyne & Wear Archives & Museum)

There are a couple of key beliefs that get in our way when we’re trying to learn something.

The first is the belief that we’re not capable. The second is the belief that it’s going to be unpleasant and time-consuming.

Even when the first is tackled, the second can cause a lot of problems. Students who are trained to be dutiful won’t question whether there’s a better way to go about the task at hand. They assume that no matter what they do, they’ll be loaded down with a bunch of boring homework to slog through, year after year.

This is reinforced by strong cultural messages about the value of hard work. Theodore Roosevelt, in a speech to a bunch of teachers, said, “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…” So many of us think we’re doing the right thing when we make ourselves miserable in our school and work.

However respected Roosevelt may be, his is just one opinion. I happen to hold a different one: There are many things worth having or worth doing that can be achieved without effort, pain, and difficulty. It’s possible to have a joyful life without suffering for the sake of suffering. But even if it’s achievement we’re after and not simply joy, we still have a greater potential for achievement when we believe that it doesn’t have to be painful.

That’s not to say that hard work isn’t necessary for achievement. However, the hard work that creates a massive impact is that which we undertake out of passionate enthusiasm and interest rather than a sense of duty. It is not better or more virtuous to do the thing that makes you miserable.

I’m not saying that everyone can have a life of leisure and lounge on the beach all day. As much as I love the beach, I wouldn’t even want that. I love solving interesting problems and contributing to the world to help make things better for everyone. I’m willing to work really hard to pursue a challenge, and I don’t have to look far to find opportunities for hard work that is also fulfilling, satisfying, and even fun.

Even when work is not fun and it is worth doing, it doesn’t have to involve “effort, pain, and difficulty.” I got back from a trip last week and was faced with the usual chore of unpacking. Unfortunately, my house itself was a mess, since I had packed in a hurry and didn’t tie up loose ends. Papers all over the kitchen table, clothes strewn everywhere, and a closet that had been torn apart in a misguided “decluttering” effort.

I was prepared to spend my entire Sunday working grimly through the chaos, which had taken a couple of weeks of enthusiastic effort to create. But then I wondered whether some enthusiastic effort at tidying might yield quick results. I set a timer for ten minutes in one of the worst spaces and started moving as quickly and efficiently as I could. When that was complete, two minutes ahead of schedule, I moved on to the next space, and so on.

In a reversal of Parkinson’s law, which suggests that a task will expand to fit the time allotted for it, I was able to compress the tidying that could have taken an entire day (it’s happened before) into about two hours. I wouldn’t say that the work was fun, but it was satisfying.

A realignment of my expectations made a difference in my weekend, but it could also change an entire life. I spent a year teaching public school. While I learned a lot and was grateful for the opportunity, it was a lonely, grueling, and often boring experience that I was not well suited to. Running my own business was much harder. In fact, it did involve a lot of the effort, pain, and difficulty that Roosevelt would have approved of. However, it was a flavor of difficulty that I enjoyed much more. Even when I was exhausted and overwhelmed, I couldn’t what to see what would unfold each day.

In our learning and our life, our homework, hobbies, and career, we are faced with more choices than we think about what to do and how to be. We can choose to believe that the things worth doing are the things that are unpleasant and painful by definition, or we can find a way to pursue satisfying challenges that bring greater value to ourselves and others. When you accidentally find yourself really enjoying yourself and thinking that your work doesn’t feel much like work, you’re not doing it wrong.