Imagine going on a long hike with friends through a lush forest. Along the way, you encounter breathtaking views, sparkling rivers, and stunning landscapes that rejuvenate your spirit. However, the hike is challenging, with steep hills and rocky terrain. You find yourself out of breath and struggling at times, barely managing to keep up with the group. When you reflect on the experience a week later, the moments of exhaustion fade into the background. Instead, you feel immense gratitude for witnessing incredible nature and sharing the adventure with loved ones. The very difficulty of the hike amplifies your sense of accomplishment. It tested you. You got through it and climbed to the apex of the mountain. That is a memory that no one can ever take away from you. It’s a memory you will recall over and over, and each time it will bring you great joy.
The same idea applies when choosing your work. If something is easy, it’s boring. If something is challenging, it’s meaningful because it tests you. Great work arises from dancing with tension, not from avoiding it. You want your work to get more and more challenging so that it pushes you to your full capacity.
Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, decided to continue working despite his illness. One of his professors said, “Shouldn’t you be spending time with your family?” If ever there was a time to justify abandoning work, surely this would be it. But Paul continued his work because he felt it was a sacred part of his identity. The hardship he endured only amplified the significance of his work.
Paul’s story highlights how true wealth isn’t measured by the ability to escape work. True wealth is choosing work that resonates so deeply with you that it becomes an integral part of your being even when, or perhaps especially when, faced with great challenges.
Think of Paul’s connection to his work when people on the sidelines say things to you like, “I’m concerned you’ll fail. Why don’t you do something safe? Why don’t you get a stable job? Why aren’t you more realistic?”
The day you settle for being realistic is the day something inside you dies. It’s the part of you that strives, explores, grows, and creates. It’s your creative vitality — that vibrant energy you bring to your work — that enables you to enrich everything you create with a fragment of your essence. What could matter more than preserving your essence? Trading your creative vitality for stability is a terrible deal, which is precisely why only uninspired people preach its benefits.
This article is an excerpt from Chapter 9 of Choose Your Work
Footnotes
The very difficulty of the hike amplifies your sense of accomplishment: There is a scientific phenomenon known as the “IKEA effect,” originating from a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. The study found that people tend to value things more when they have put effort into creating or obtaining them. It found that participants who built their own IKEA boxes valued them more highly than pre-assembled boxes, supporting the idea that the more difficult something is, the greater your sense of accomplishment. Michael I. Norton, Daniel Mochon, and Dan Ariely, “The IKEA Effect: When Labour Leads to Love,” Journal of Consumer Psychology 22, no. 3 (2012): 453–60, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcps.2011.08.002. The IKEA effect is also discussed in the excellent book, Quit. Annie Duke, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away (New York: Portfolio, 2022), 151.
But Paul continued his work because he felt it was a sacred part of his identity: Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air (New York: Random House, 2016), 87.
Dan Dobos writes about decision making, personal growth, human potential, fulfillment and helping people choose the work that they are meant to do. He is the author of Choose Your Work.