Staying Grateful and Committed while Working From Home
At the end of the second chapter of What I talk about When I talk about running, Haruki Murakami discusses how he sometimes doesn't feel like running. He recalls asking a dumb question during an interview with Toshihiko Seko, an Olympic runner from Japan:
HM: Does a runner at your level ever feel like you'd rather not run today, like you don't want to run and rather just sleep in?
TS: Of Course. All the time!
It made me realize that even at a high level, the temptation to stop and indulge in laziness is always present. Here is how Haruki-san pushes himself to run when he feels that temptation:
Whenever I feel like I don't want to run, I always ask myself the same thing:
You're able to make a living as a novelist working at home, setting your own hours, so you don't have to commute on a packed train or sit through boring meetings. Don't you realize how fortunate you are? (Believe me, I do). Compared to that, running an hour the neighborhood is nothing, right?
We can draw inspiration from how Haruki-san motivates himself to pursue what he loves. He remains disciplined and committed. Not just for the sake of consistency, but to make it sustainable for his health and passion: running and writing novels.
Midway through the fourth section, he reflects on how challenging it becomes to balance running with writing as his schedule grows busier. However, he doesn't want to use being busy as a reason to slack off, so he keeps up with his running no matter what. He believes that if being busy becomes an excuse not to run, he might never run again.
I have only few reasons to keep on running, and a truckload of them to quit. All I can do is keep those few reasons nicely polished.
It turns out that actively maintaining and polishing our reasons is one of the most important things we can do.
References
Tags: