The Truth Curve

Writing, for me, is very much like getting into a cold pool.  Every cell of my body resists.  I dip my toe in and it’s way too cold and my body screams to turn back, to go home where the temperature is comfortable.  My body wants warmth and pleasant sensations, not extreme experiences.  I watch how others just dive right in.  I rationalize that they are not as sensitive to the cold as I am.  But I stand in the shallow end, first with just my feet, then up to my knees, then waist, chest, and finally, I dip my shoulders under and begin swimming.  Once I begin, I wonder why in the world I didn’t just dive in.  Swimming is so exhilarating and I get angry with myself for wasting ten minutes getting in.  I then resolve to dive in next time.

But next time, it happens again.  No matter how many times I go through my ten-minute pool acclimation procedure, it doesn’t get any easier.  Every single time, I experience resistance.  For me, writing is the same way.  Writing is scary, boring, and hard.  I don’t know why I do it when I’d rather be curled up in bed, reading.

William James said in The Varieties of Religious Experience:

Sometimes no emotional state is sovereign, but many contrary ones are mixed together.  In that case one hears both “yeses” and “noes,” and the “will” is called on then to solve the conflict.  Take a soldier, for example, with his dread of cowardice impelling him to advance, his fears impelling him to run, and his propensities to imitation pushing him towards various courses if his comrades offer various examples.  His person becomes the seat of a mass of interferences; and he may for a time simply waver, because no one emotion prevails.  There is a pitch of intensity, though, which, if any emotion reach it, enthrones that one as alone effective and sweeps its antagonists and all their inhibitions away.  The fury of his comrades’ charge, once entered on, will give this pitch of courage to the soldier; the panic of their rout will give this pitch of fear.  In these sovereign excitements, things ordinarily impossible grow natural because the inhibitions are annulled.  Their “no! no!” not only is not heard, it does not exist.  Obstacles are then like tissue-paper hoops to the circus rider–no impediment; the flood is higher than the dam they make.

I say this: when the desire to do finally outweighs the desire to not do, you do it.  I don’t know how or why this push happens but eventually it happens.  And I’m always glad in retrospect that it happened… both when swimming and when writing.

What are you resisting doing? 

Tags: Laziness, Procrastination, Psychology, Writing by Julie
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Is it possible to be lazy and accomplish what you want to do or do you need to work hard in order to succeed? 

I’ve been thinking about this question ever since I stumbled upon the Productivity Showdown at Slackermanager where Steve Pavlina and Fred Gratzon (author of The Lazy Way to Success) engaged in a three-day debate about whether it’s laziness or hard work that leads to success.  After having eagerly consumed both Fred’s book and Steve’s posts, I still felt empty, having gotten no closer to an answer.  They both seemed right but if that were true, that would be paradoxical.

This paradox naturally intrigued me so I was compelled to resolve it.  In order to resolve it, let’s go back to the very definition of work.  But not to the kind of work that people do at their jobs (though we will get to that soon), but rather Work, as is used in physics.  Simply, Work is the transfer of energy from one system to another.  The simplest formula is W=Fd (where Work is Force multiplied by distance).  Any combination of force and distance can achieve some amount of Work.  You can have a small force going for a long distance or a large force going a short distance to accomplish the same amount of Work.  Work always involves motion of some sort.  For example, if you have to move a boulder, you have several options to accomplish this.  You could push it (using the force of your muscles), you could set it on an incline so that it rolls down by itself (using the force of gravity), you could pull it with a tractor (using technology), or you could use any number of other methods to get the boulder to move some distance.

Most options for getting Work done fall into the following categories:

• Your own labor
• Someone else’s labor
• Technology (e.g. tractor, computer, ox)
• Time, growth, or natural change
• Natural laws or resources (e.g. gravity, a waterfall, sun’s energy)

Now let’s see if we can apply the physics law to the world of work as we think of it.  Suppose you have some work you want to do.  Before you roll up your sleeves and get to work, consider the following: 

Work is a noun before it is a verb.

In other words, a Work is an accomplishment, an end result of force applied over distance.  But what does that mean?  It means that if you view work as an end result and not an activity (at least not yet), you open up the possibility of multiple paths to get to that result.  Let me give an example.

Let’s say that you have to add 1,000 numbers together. How many different ways are there to accomplish this task?  You have options from among the categories I listed above.  You could add the numbers yourself using a pencil and paper, you could use a calculator, you could write a computer program that will do this for you, you could delegate it to someone else to do or find some other solution I didn’t list.  In this example, you have multiple options for adding the numbers and you can choose one or more to complete the task.  But is this true for all tasks?  No, and this is where the interesting paradox comes in.

Some tasks have a single option: Your own labor.  For example, if you want to build muscle, I know of no way to delegate it, to use technology to do it for you (though you can certainly use weights or machines to assist you), to use natural resources, or time.  There is only you and if this is something you wish to accomplish, then you have to do the work.

You can only be lazy when you have options.  I believe this is what Fred Gratzon means in his book when he encourages one to find the lever.  In other words, finding the lever means finding the easy, clever solution that doesn’t require you to do any work.  But this is where Fred Gratzon’s book stops short for he doesn’t delve into tasks that have no options other than one’s own labor.  And there are many such tasks.  In fact, a lot of worthwhile tasks fall into this category. For those tasks, you have no choice but to do them yourself. 

So, what I conclude is not that laziness and work are opposites that are in conflict but rather, that they are labels for two different situations: one in which you have a choice, and one in which you don’t have a choice. Work begins where options end. But, as Fred Gratzon indicates in his book, it need not be work if you follow your bliss.

Now that I look at it that way, it’s no longer a paradox.

Tags: Laziness, Paradox, Work by Julie
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