In the best of circumstances, even the least rewarding work is seen as a project or a challenge, incidentally a word recently adopted by the French. Trim the hedge? Water those plants? No problem! When would you like me to start!
In more usual times, enthusiasm is somewhat dampened but a certain satisfaction is nevertheless to be derived from completing a task, as in a job well done. This helps to establish a momentum as one moves on to the next item in the list, emboldened perhaps by the sound of scattered applause. I suspect most of us spend the bulk of our lives "negotiating" tasks in this way.
And then there are those times, thankfully not too frequent, when the task becomes the sort of chore where there are no points to be won and no satisfaction to be gained, no matter how many labours are completed. So, zero satisfaction but it's even worse if one does nothing!
Your post Barnaby reads a little like the mirror immage of my
ReplyDelete"Rituals of ordinary life..." blogpost about a year ago. Essentially if chores become rituals they might take on more meaning; at least that's the idea.
Hi Jerry
ReplyDeleteYes, I well remember your post last year about Thomas Merton. And I remember how much I was impressed by it.
You finshed: "On reflection however much of the ordinariness of everday life can be viewed and experienced as positviely challenging and fulfilling or negatively habitual and burdensome." What is it in our (my) chemistry that, from time to time renders the "challenging and fulfilling" "habitual and burdensome"?
I wish I knew!