Challenging, Yet Meaningful Pursuits
"A Surprising Route to the Best Life Possible"
In a recent moment of serendipity, I was browsing The New York Times homepage, and an article caught my eye. “A Surprising Route to the Best Life Possible” was the headline. I am passionate about empowering and enabling individuals and organizations to be inspired and fulfilled, so naturally, I was curious.
What I found was a thought-provoking piece by David Brooks exploring the paradox of hard work. Why do we deliberately choose difficult paths? Why do we willingly endure what Brooks describes as "misery" and "pain"? What compels us to pursue challenging endeavors that often make us uncomfortable?
Brooks offers a compelling insight: “people commit to great projects, they endure hard challenges because they are entranced, enchanted.” They are “seized,” and no amount of challenge will stop their pursuit.
He illustrates this with his own relationship to writing: "I don't like to write but I want to write....I don't enjoy it, but I care about it."
Many of us can identify with that sentiment, that curious contradiction we experience—when things are so hard, and we love every minute of it.
Brooks outlines what he believes is the process (and experience!) that leads to and reinforces these challenging yet meaningful pursuits:
It starts with Mystery. Like falling in love, you’re interested and drawn into something that captures us.
Mystery is followed by Curiosity. A propulsive force, curiosity, “drives you to explore that dark cave despite your fears of going down there.”
And then, Discrepancy. The recognition of “a vast discrepancy between what she knows about some subject and what she’d like to know, how good she is at some activity and how good she wants to be.” This creates a sense of wanting—you want to get better at whatever has gripped you and drawn you in.
This is followed by the first taste of Mastery. One eventually reaches a point where they’re starting to get it, “by the time you reach craftsman status, you don’t just love the product, you love the process, the tiny disciplines, the long hours, the remorseless work.”
Do you agree? Have you felt the draw of intrigue and mystery? Have you been “seized”? Do you toil away at something overwhelming, hard, and “painful” because you want to? Because you love to?
Or are you looking for this feeling? Are you searching to be “seized”?
Brooks writes:
“It is a great and underappreciated talent — the capacity to be seized. Some people go through life thick-skinned. School or career has given them a pragmatic, instrumental, efficiency-maximizing frame of mind. They live their life under pressure, so their head is down; they’re not open to delight, or open to that moment of rapture that can redirect a life. Others have a certain receptivity to them.
They are able to hear that still, soft voice inside: “Maybe I could write a novel.” They are sensitive, impressionable, enthusiastic, absorbent, hospitable. They are open to being surprised, and when that constructive disorientation happens, they stop and contemplate: What am I being called upon to do here? Most of our great journeys begin with a surprise. Wonder, Descartes observed, “is a sudden surprise of the soul.”
Maybe this is you. (and more on being open to being surprised in a future article!)
Brooks concludes with a perfect metaphor from Jurassic Park:
“There’s a scene in “Jurassic Park” in which some visitors are watching a T. Rex being fed lunch in the form of a goat. The Sam Neill character makes an observation that gets the whole movie going. The T. Rex, he says, “doesn’t want to be fed. He wants to hunt.””
Can you identify? Perhaps there's something fundamental in us that craves the challenge of the hunt rather than the ease of being fed.
And to those who have found themselves consumed by a passion, pursuit, or challenge—who occasionally wonder "why do I do this to myself?!"—perhaps you've stumbled onto what Brooks suggests might be "the Best Life Possible."
Here’s the link to the full article:
David Brooks’ article: A Surprising Route to the Best Life Possible