Most of us can name the effort that exhausts us faster than the effort that doesn't register as effort at all. The second kind is easy to miss. Hours go by, something gets made or sorted or carried, and nothing in you kept score.
Which of the things I do leave me fuller afterwards? When did an hour last pass without my checking it? What am I doing when nobody has to ask me twice?
People ask this one sideways too: why does some work drain me and other work doesn't, what am I actually good at, why does the easy thing feel like it doesn't count.
That last one is worth a second look. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us picked up the idea that effort is the proof, that if it came easily it can't have been worth much. So the thing that flows gets treated as a hobby, or a habit, or a talent too ordinary to mention. Who taught me that hard and valuable were the same thing?
Some effort is worth every bit of strain, and nobody's saying otherwise. But there's a difference between effort that stretches you and effort that you're spending to hold something up. Which one is this? How would I tell from the inside?
The body tends to know first. Shoulders drop, breath goes down low, the jaw lets go. And the other kind has its own signs: a held breath, a clenched hand, a day that ends with relief instead of satisfaction. What does yours look like?
What if effortless doesn't mean you didn't try? What if it just means nothing in you was pulling the other way?
I wrote about what's left when the striving stops in Nothing Needs Fixing. Especially Not You., and about letting go of becoming in Nothing to Become. Just Be..
If this one turned something up and you feel like sharing it, I'd like to hear it. Private, under your name, or anonymous, whichever feels right to you.
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