Love Your Work

Work – has been the subject of many negative criticisms. It’s been called an interruption of weekends, a necessary evil, an obnoxious option, etc. The worst I ever come to hear is from a guy who compares work with life in prison.


“Life in Prison versus A Full Time Job”

*In prison, they spend the majority of their time in an eight foot by ten foot cell. At work, one spends of my time in a six by eight cubicle.

*In prison, they get three meals a day. At work, we only get a break for one meal and we have to pay for that one.

*In prison, you get time off for good behavior. At work, we get rewarded for good behavior with more work.

*At work, we must wear an ID badge at all times. In prison they provide you with clothing with the ID conveniently sewn onto the clothes.

*At work, there is a dress standard, but we must buy our own clothes. In prison there is a dress standard, but they supply the clothes.

*At work, we must carry around a security card and unlock and open all the doors ourselves. In prison a guard locks and unlocks all the doors for a prisoner.

*In prison, they can watch TV and play games. At work, we can get fired for watching TV and paying games.

*In prison, they will pay my way through school to learn a new career and give me time to do it. At work they will pay for our education, but we must do it in our own time.

*In prison, they have exercise rooms that they allow you to use almost wherever you want. AT work, we have an exercise room that you can use, but it must be on your time.

*In prison, we can fall asleep on the job and no serious consequence comes from my actions. At work, if we fall asleep on the job we easily get suspended.

*In prison, they ball and chain you when you have to go somewhere. At work, you are ball and chained.

*In prison, you have full medical coverage with no deductibles. AT work, you get partial coverage and pay all the deductibles.

*In prison, all experiences are paid by the taxpayer, with no work on their part. AT work, you get to pay all expenses to go to work, and then deduct the taxes from your salary to pay for their prisoners.


Sounds crazy? Funny crazy? Yeah I guess it does and I don’t know what the writer is trying to say, but if he’s implying that committing a crime and spending the rest of your life in prison is better than being chained to an office table, SORRY, but that’s not my cup of iced coffee.

But we might be surprise to know, there are actually a multitude of people who feel this way. They are helplessly chained to their work. Given a choice, they would rather buy a lottery ticket and hope to win, so they can retire at an early age of twenty.


Work is not only a means by which we can earn a living. It is a means by which we can earn how to live.

It provides us with countless opportunity to build up that most important part of the human being, the inward part called character.

Work provides us with the opportunity to meet new friends, learn life experiences and even teaches us to avoid certain kind of people.

Work gives us the blessed opportunity to be productive with our hands and mind, contribute to society, and make this world a little better.

In short; work gives us value as human beings.


One’s perspective of work becomes healthy the moment he removes his focus on himself and starts looking at the concern of others.


The choice is yours.

You can either choose to make work a life imprisonment sentence

Or you can choose to make work a wonderful means to live.

How to Make Work Feel Effortless

Sometimes work can be a drag. You get caught up in trying to be more productive and suddenly your life turns into a series of to-do lists. You gauge your measure of success by how much you accomplish. You even determine how happy you allow yourself to be by how much you’ve gotten done in the day.

We spend a lot of time trying to find ways to be more productive. To do things faster, better, cheaper and spend our time more effectively. But instead of just doing more in less time, maybe we should focus on actually enjoying the work we’re doing instead.

Here are 8 ways to make work seem like less of a chore and more like a gift:


1. Follow your natural rhythms. A lot of the time I resent working is because I’m trying to force myself to do something I don’t feel like doing. Naturally there will always be some things you’re not crazy about doing (like cleaning the toilet). But how often do you force yourself to work more, when you really want to relax? When you force yourself to work when you’ve promised yourself a break, you’ll likely just end up distracting yourself with other things and put off working. Then you get stressed and end up resenting work. Instead, follow your natural rhythms. When you feel like working, work. When you don’t, don’t. Don’t over complicate things.

2. Do, don’t think. I’m going to stay true to this point and not think about writing something elaborate. Just do, stop thinking about it. Fail, make corrections later.


3. Don’t put sugar in your tank. You wouldn’t put sugar in your gas tank right? It doesn’t make much sense to fill your body up with unhealthy fuel either. If you don’t have the energy to get the work you need to done, work will feel forced.


4. Remove hidden roadblocks. What’s making you avoid working? What’s making your work seem like drudgery rather than joyful? It might have something to do with your beliefs about yourself. Maybe you believe you’re not good enough, smart enough or don’t have enough experience. Question your beliefs about what you can and can’t do.

5. Only do your best. Work can easily become a chore when you’re trying to constantly be perfect. The truth is, some of your ideas might not be so great. Others will be mind blowing. If you can accept that and just do your best, you stop judging yourself. Guess what it feels like when you’re no longer picking over everything you do with a fine toothed comb? It feels extremely liberating. It feels like you can actually enjoy your experience, rather than worrying about how everything is going to turn out. That is working effortlessly.


6. Act from your gut. When you think you have a great idea, believe it. Follow it. Chase it until you’re out of breath and can barely hold yourself up. Because if you don’t trust yourself, you’ll regret it later. The best way to live is to follow your intuition and trust life. If nothing else, trust yourself. Because if you can’t trust yourself, how can you trust your mistrust? That’s not very smart is it?


7. Focus on what matters. Our minds are constantly pulling us in different directions. We have to wash the cat, buy more apple cinnamon oatmeal, finish writing that resignation letter to your no-longer-boss at your dead-end job, and all sorts of other things. We have a tendency to follow what’s urgent instead of what’s important. In order to get the important things done, we have to be ruthless at removing distractions. If it takes bringing a laptop (or notepad) to a cafe to write your grandiose novel, then do that. Avoid the vacuum of minutiae urgency. Remove all distractions so you can focus on the important things. I would much rather spend 4 hours working on an important project, then 4 hours spinning my wheels and scratching my head trying to figure out what I did today.


8. Refuse to do what you don’t want to do. I often avoid working because I’m trying to do things I think I “should do.” I think I should read more because it will make me smarter. I think I should buy new clothes because it will make me cooler. I think I should work on this project because it will be good for my resume. Forget what you think you should do (except maybe… paying your rent). Do what you want to do. Other people will understand. In fact, they’ll probably envy you.