(via mecredis on flickr under cc)
As I was sitting eating lunch and thinking about my last post I had somewhat of a revelation. I really don’t like work.
Looking back on my first business, Enviar, I didn’t start that as a business. I really started that with the approach of “this puzzle looks fun.” It was more like I see this piece and I see this piece, and I see that no one else is putting them together but if I do I win (and get paid). So I tried it, and it worked, so I tried it again and worked…and off it went. I gained momentum, I gained contacts in the industry, and I made some money, all while solving these puzzles. But something happened along the way…Some sort of pressure started coming in. I guess it was the “shoulds.”
Somewhere along the way I started saying “well you should do this,” and you “should be doing that.” And suddenly it didn’t feel like a puzzle anymore, it started to feel like work. I guess I define work as stuff you HAVE to do that isn’t fun, and that is how this started to feel. But coupled with the shoulds (I should keep working on this), I stuck with it. I told myself I have to work to make this work, and I should not stop. This is when I started hitting coffee shops for “work.” After all, you can’t do work at home and you’re supposed to be doing work at least from 8am to 5pm. Somewhere along the way this rule became ingrained in me. I’m supposed to be working from 8am to 5pm, no exceptions. So ever since then I’ve made it a habit to do work at that time, and usually most of it at a coffee shop (because again, work needs a “formal” place).
But the interesting thing for me looking back is I can now see where things went awry. I started treating everything like work (which I hate) instead of like a game/puzzle (which I love), and you can get a lot further in life when each day is another exciting puzzle instead of just another day at work.
How can you make today a game?
Life Putting 