One of my employees has been out sick with the coronavirus for six weeks, entirely unable to work during that time.

I’m happy to report that she’s feeling a bit better — she isn’t having breathing problems now — but her energy and focus are still a long way from allowing her to return at one hundred percent.

So in the meantime, I’ve been spending a few hours each day doing her job. And that’s been pretty satisfying, because I already know how to do her job. I feel productive, industrious, and competent, checking things off the list and watching stuff happen.

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I suspect that a lot of the world’s most prolific Internet meme creators and curators are introverts. There seems to be a disproportionate number of memes focusing on the habits and preferences of people who would rather do anything but commit to plans with their fellow humans.

Though I am an extrovert, I can relate; I am a morning person who loves to be in bed by nine. I wasn’t always this way, though. I was young and fun once upon a time. But even when I wanted to get to bed early, I didn’t know how to allow myself the privilege. I worked six days a week and still said yes to everything. It wore me out.

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“I have to force myself to do it.”

Whenever I hear something like this, my ears perk up. We all have to do things we don’t want to do, so this should be kind of boring. But what’s fascinating to me is hearing about people who force themselves to do things that are completely optional.

They speak of forcing themselves to do a specific kind of exercise, eat a certain kind of food, or engage in a particular kind of work.

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We begin as helpless creatures who can’t do anything.

As we grow, we add skills and responsibilities. Wake up, brush your teeth, eat your breakfast, tie your shoes, go to school.

Many of these “must do” tasks are never released — they become part of our lives forever. That’s why it’s incredibly important to question, every so often, whether we truly have to do the things we think we do and reevaluate our commitments.

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I’m not sure who we have to blame for it. The Puritans? The media? Regardless of where it came from, so many of us have the same problem: We think that doing something worthwhile has to be difficult.

Consider exercise. So many people say that the hate working out. Honestly, if the only way that I could get exercise was to show up at a gym and operate some machinery in a fluorescent-lit room, I would hate working out too. But there are lots of different ways to stay fit. Gardening, building stuff, hiking, playing games…there are a million ways to get some exercise while having fun or accomplishing something meaningful. Why do so many of us assume it has to be miserable?

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