Take a long walk down Easy Street.
Some people relish hardship. Others get a sense of satisfaction out of enduring difficult and painful situations. There are even connoisseurs of suffering, who appreciate different flavors and textures of misery.
I’m in the opposite camp. If life presents itself as easy and enjoyable, I don’t ask questions. I don’t mind working hard, or experiencing discomfort, if there’s a clear reward to be had (or a worse fate to be avoided). But overall, I like to look for the shortest line between two points. It’s just the way I’m wired; a little lazy and more than a little hedonistic.
Still, I’m conscientious — I don’t like to let things slide. I don’t like feeling out-of-control, or disorganized, or discombobulated. Obviously, to avoid entropy, a person has to stay motivated and get stuff done. So where’s the balance? Are there ways to save enormous amounts of energy and effort in life, but not be a slacker? To be effective without gritting your teeth or losing sleep?
I’ve been compiling the list below for a few years, but I haven’t added anything recently. It’s as good a time as any to publish it. Let me know what you think.
Easier Life Maxims
1. It’s easier to forgive than it is to hold a grudge.
2. Apologizing and making right is easier than trying to justify or cover-up a mistake.
3. Learning new things is easier than defending your intelligence and expertise.
4. It’s easier to do what you want rather than to do what you think other people want you to do.
5. Helping and loving other people is easier than trying to control them.
6. Working smart is easier than working hard.
7. Working hard is easier than procrastinating, worrying, or evading work.
8. It’s easier to socialize and network with people that you like, and easier to love people who appreciate you.
9. Learning from your mistakes is easier than constantly repeating them.
10. The easiest way to get what you want is to visualize and expect it (radical slack).
11. Doing only what you enjoy is easier than slogging through life.
12. It’s easier to change the trigger than it is to change the behavior.
13. It’s easier to find inspiration and refocus than it is to curb vices and distractions via self-discipline.
14. It’s easier to reach a big or difficult goal than an average or mediocre goal (less competition).
15. Easier doesn’t necessarily mean easy.
Most of the ideas on the list were borrowed (or stolen) from other writers and thinkers, but I’ve enjoyed putting those ideas into my own words so that the maxims would better resonate with me when going back to them. I look at the list now and then to help me decide if it’s time to dig in and grind it out, or coast and look for the path of least resistance.
Keep reading … it will makes sense.
In my earlier posts in this series, I wrote about the idea that willpower is less a muscle we can strengthen, and more a limited resource that we need to spend wisely. If we spend our day doing taxes (difficult), we’ll have less energy at the end of the day to resist sweet desserts or other temptations.
We all “leak” willpower to some extent, wasting our daily supply of mental fortitude on battles like staying awake when we’re sleepy, resisting food cravings, making ourselves do work we don’t want to do, enduring annoying people, etc. If we take proactive steps to either change our lives or establish new habits, these “leaks” go away and we’re left with more willpower to work on whatever we really want to work on (making art, earning money, fixing stuff, improving the lives of others — whatever our “life’s work” happens to be).
Willpower in action
I’m considering two metaphors for the concept of willpower; willpower as a commodity and willpower as a muscle. I think the second metaphor is closer to the way that most people think about willpower. Willpower is something that can be exercised and strengthened. A person can toughen themselves up. Try hard, and you get better at trying hard.
I think this view is mostly false. Hard things get easier because you get better at them when you do them. Skills that have a steep learning curve, that feel difficult when you’re acquiring them, aren’t going to feel hard for that long. Why not? You can’t have a steep learning curve without having a short duration. If you keep at it, the hard feeling part will pass relatively quickly.
So is willpower a commodity? Is it a raw resource, valuable, scarce, and non-renewable, with multiple potential applications? I think this metaphor is much closer. You can renew your willpower by sleeping, and to a lesser extent with breaks, pep-talks, and sugary snacks, but in a given day willpower is basically non-renewable. Willpower can be drained by any number of innocuous-seeming tasks, anything that requires mental concentration, enduring the unpleasant, complex decision-making, or resisting temptation. Answering complicated email, having to interact with people you don’t like, searching for the best airline ticket deal, trying to NOT eat that doughnut, making lunch for your kid when there’s no food in the house — all these things can drain your willpower quicker a bullet hole in a gas tank.
Some people seem blessed with an abundance of willpower. They have incredible powers of concentration, they can stoically endure the most unpleasant conditions, easily stick to the most spartan of diets, effortlessly delay gratification, and regularly complete grueling exercise programs.
Other less fortunate souls struggle with attention-deficit-disorder and are defenseless against all forms of indulgence. They have to gear themselves up to get the littlest thing done. If there is cake, they will eat it. If there is Scotch they will drink it. If there is the internet, they will waste time on it.
People less naturally endowed with willpower might in fact be the luckier group. If they want to achieve anything, they will quickly learn that they have to guard their willpower against theft and to conserve against waste.
Those born into the first group might stoically labor their entire lives, getting much done but achieving nothing, because they are never forced to develop good willpower management skills.
Personally I think I started somewhere in the middle (by nature and/or nurture) and I’m trying to better use my available willpower with smart willpower management. So what do I mean by that?
IMO willpower management has two sides:
I’ll cover both in my next post.
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