Forcing Work

If you need to force yourself to work, you're working on the wrong thing.
-Dan Koe: "The 80-Hour Myth"

I'm just going to say it: this is bullshit.

I honestly don't remember this article. But at some point, I saved this (and two other passages) from the article. It recently resurfaced.

And this time, I was assaulted with a sense of wrongness.

I understand the idea, and can even see where the author is coming from. Still, it oversimplifies and ignores this simple truth: life is hard, and people are messy.

We all want to love our work.

I hope that, eventually, we all can find work that we love. Work that fulfills us, that engages us, that tickles our brains. It is one of life's grand goals. But here's the thing — even when we find that job, there will still be days that suck.

I mean, really, really suck! On those days, we will have no choice but to force ourselves to go and do THE WORK.

That's okay. I promise you that. I am giving you permission to be okay with those days. Because the productivity sphere — just a less roidy version of the manosphere if you ask me — wants you to feel bad about the struggle. It would have you believe that, just as the quote above says, struggling with our work means we have screwed up. We have gone astray.

And they can get us back on course.

Again — bullshit.

Some struggles are actually wake-up calls. They are notifications that we need to recalibrate. To find a better solution. A better system. When resistance in life kicks it up a notch, that is time for us to step back and assess the source of it. Some self-reflection can go a long way to help us look for opportunities to improve. For me, journaling is one of the most powerful tools to help me assess: Am I struggling because I need to make a change, or is it just life being, well, life?

Yet, many times that reflection leads us to an important realization: The source of the struggle is a combination of many things: our messy protoplasm, the fact we have to interact with and rely on others (with their equally messy lives and protoplasm), and the unfiltered randomness of life.

A happy life is not a life without struggle, it’s a life with meaningful struggle.
-Mark Manson

Meaning in life requires effort. Requires force. We have to work, and it will feel like work. If I could find the bastard who convinced us to parrot the idiotic phrase, "If you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life," I'd punch them in the throat before they could utter such nonsense.

That platitude does more harm than good. I see younger generations shying away from struggle. It isn't universal, but I will never forget young medical students, when I was a general surgery resident, telling me they were going to go sleep when we were on call, and to only call them if there was something interesting.

I immediately stopped wasting my time trying to teach those students.

They didn't understand — and I worry they still don't — that there is so much learning that happens when we have to force ourselves to work. When things are hard, or boring, or we are just so damn tired, we find immense growth in pushing through, in persevering. There is value to be found in the mundane. Did I enjoy writing those stupid consult notes at 3 am? Not at all. But did I learn and grow from it? Hell yes, I did.

I admit it — I am broken. In nearly 14 years in my current job, I have taken the following sick days: in the ER for a kidney stone, after I vomited in the bathroom of the clinic (and was sent home by my manager), and when I had collapsed at the bottom of my stairs and couldn't get up for two hours. Yeah, I called out the following day.

So, my compass of when someone shouldn't keep struggling is way off north.

But.

I still insist that there is a middle ground. A place where we can push through, force ourselves to complete the work, and grow from it. And doing so doesn't mean there is something wrong with us, the job, or the fact that it feels hard.

Some days are just hard. Damn hard. And that is perfectly okay. Even necessary.

Growth comes when we reach what we thought was our limit and then push a little more. If it is always easy, we will stagnate. I love my job. I honestly think I have the coolest job in the world, and am beyond grateful for the opportunity I have to practice urology and for the trust people put in me.

Still, I don't love every day. There are times it takes effort. It is a struggle. I am forcing just about every step.

Because we are messy and complicated and life is also.

Accept it. Love the work, but also learn to love the struggle. Or at least the parts of the struggle that make us better.