Hard work. That's a phrase I have never liked, mostly because my standard operational mode is permanently set on "lounge." Even as a kid I did not like getting my hands dirty. I whined when I had to do yard work or wash the dishes or pretty much anything else that looked a bit like work. This attitude has not served me well. I am perhaps the laziest adult alive.
I should amend the previous thought: I will put my heart and soul into something that matters to me. I will work--and work hard--if I care. But if I don't care? Well. I become cranky. I hem and haw. I stall. I want to be more cheerful when I work. I want to be able to grin through the hard part so I can get to the fun, easy part. Because every single thing that I have actually worked at--and worked through the evil difficult part--I have ended up enjoying quite thoroughly.
Case in point: cooking. For whole decades of my life the only things I could properly cook were fried potatoes and eggs. Cooking was so ridiculously hard for me. So many nit picky directions and fussy methods! It seemed downright Draconian. But after a lot of fails and a lot of practice I now find cooking delightful. Cooking lets you conjure something out of nothing. It is pure magic. It is much easier for me to cook dinner today than it was when I was a bumbling, crabby twenty-year-old.
I want this cooking story to be a sort of catch-all fable for everything I'm attempting to work at in my life--finding fulfillment, creating meaningful things, learning how to live more staunchly in the moment. But it is, like most fables, too clear. Too easy. Perhaps it is the difficult part of learning something new that makes the easy part that follows all the more meaningful. Perhaps the fulfillment comes from the hundreds of hours dedicated to mastering a skill, an art form, a singular risotto. Perhaps, after all, it is the hard work that makes anything worth it.
This is something I need to remember, particularly when it comes to the hard--very hard--task of writing. So I made you a little something that might make it easier to remember. Because everything feels better in watercolor. Feel free to download and share to your heart's content.
*In an attempt to shake my mental creative black hole, my goal is to create a new printable most Fridays. Check out the free printables page to see if any strike your fancy. Share to your heart's content!
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