The Privilege Of Being Burdened

We've all heard the story of Sisyphus. For those who haven't, here's the gist:

According to Greek mythology, Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra. For cheating death twice, the Gods doomed him to roll an immense boulder up a hill for the rest of eternity. Every time he'd reach the top, the boulder would roll back down and Sisyphus would have to start from scratch. Sucks to be him, right?

I believe we all feel like Sisyphus on some days. Although we aren't doomed to move a rock up a hill for the rest of eternity, we have days where we feel the incessant burden of our work and problems. And like any normal human being, we create the utopian image about how everything would be completely opposite if it were up to us. Is that what we really want, though?

Think back to the last time you felt satisfied, productive, and challenged. As you can tell, I'm not talking about sipping margaritas on a hammock. I'm talking about being in the zone of proximal development (what millennials call the 'zone'). You'd most definitely go back to a time you were doing something challenging, difficult, and dare I say, Sisyphean?

Here's the deal. I believe we all want to do meaningful work. I surely hope everyone is in fact doing meaningful work. But regardless of what you do and where you are, everything you do requires effort. Boringly consistent effort. But isn't that the point? Isn't that the beauty?

Sipping cocktails on a hammock for a weekend is a vacation. Anything more and it's called alcoholism (not quite but I'm counting on your sense of humour here). Easy is easy but easy is also boring. No wonder 70% of lottery winners go bankrupt (and miserable) just a few years after winning. And here's a question: Would you really like to be handed something you didn't earn?

Sisyphus is the poster child of meaningless work and it's not hard to see why. But here's something you probably didn't know. It is said that the moment Sisyphus acknowledged the futility of the task and accepted fate instead of fighting it, he reached a state of contented satisfaction.

So, why mustn't we imagine Sisyphus happy?