Today I am thankful for tasks and situations that are straightforward. Now, I enjoy figuring out challenging situations and circumstances just as much as the next person (okay, maybe a little more than the next person), but that does not mean that I want every assignment, project, situation, or circumstance to require my brain to fire on all cylinders and require me to make use of other people’s cylinders as well.
Sometimes I just want an assignment, project, situation, or circumstance to be straightforward. And I think that as human beings we need those types of tasks to be included in the mix or else our lives will lack balance. Think about it: if every single task that we encountered in life were extremely difficult and either impossible or practically impossible for us to complete or solve on our own, we would likely only be able to take care of about one quarter to one third of the tasks and situations that we currently handle.
So, what does that mean in the overall scheme of things? It means that we would hardly ever accomplish anything, complete anything, create anything, or develop anything. In other words, our world would essentially become stagnant, dull, and utterly boring. And I do not know about you, but that is certainly not a world that I want to live in.
Thankfully, though, most of us encounter a mixture of challenging tasks and easy tasks, of which both types are beneficial. The challenging ones serve to increase your confidence as you complete mini-goals within the assignment, as well as when you complete the actual assignment itself. In addition, challenging projects also build up your level of endurance, increase your ability to think effectively while under pressure, and foster an environment that allows you to stretch your current skill set, which prepares you for future advancement. However, the sheer pressure and length of time during which you must function at this optimum level in order to complete the task correctly and efficiently is often more than enough to drain you physically, mentally, and emotionally.
On the other hand, the easier tasks also serve to increase your confidence, and at times can also boast of the accompanying benefits of stretching your current skill set and preparing you for future advancement, in that the completion of those easier tasks often demonstrates your ability to work in a consistent manner, as well as provides proof of your dependable nature. The easier tasks also generally exert lighter levels of stress into your life, and because of this can appear to be more enjoyable. However, the easier tasks generally are not designed in such a way as to truly help you to develop your character and to propel yourself beyond your comfort zone, because they oftentimes are mere repetitions of situations that you have already faced.
Though it is fairly clear that both types of assignments, projects, situations, and circumstances are needed in life based on the aforementioned pros and cons, they must be present in a manner that is balanced so that we human beings neither become complacent because life is too easy and routine, or feel so overwhelmed that life becomes devoid of joy and a sense of making progress. And since I have already spoken here about my appreciation of adversity and challenging circumstances, this entry serves as a celebration of those tasks that, through their ease of completion and aversion to stress, bring balance to lives that very much need it. #lovebythedrop
love by the drop 