Why you can’t work like a robot
Meaning is something a robot can’t imagine.
My Roomba has a difficult time getting over the threshold in my hallway.
The thing will bang its little robot nose against the slight-too-high threshold for an hour before it either makes it or gives up and heads back to the dock.
Why does this thing have so much energy to ram a threshold, but I sometimes can’t summon the energy to move my little fingers around to type on a keyboard?
To many online self-help gurus, it’s just because I’m not disciplined enough.
But I think my resistance to doing the work is the heart of what it means to be human. I’m not a robot. I notice when my efforts seem futile. That’s good.
But I can’t just stop there. I have to figure out why I don’t want to do the work. That, I find, gets me to the deepest questions in my life. Why am I writing? Who am I trying to serve? What matters to me?
Until I have at least functional answers to those questions, I will stare at a threshold I can’t cross: the blank white page.
Ask yourself why you don’t want to do it
One man is struggling with a stone. He’s trying to pull it through the mud, cursing, and when you ask him what he’s doing, he says, “Trying to…
