Is it really discipline—or just curiosity?
From Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Hardcover): The Classic Edition, illustrated by Charles Santore.
How do people find the motivation to work hard?
As I type this I’m procrastinating on work that I’ve been trying to do for 2 hours. English writing assignments sometime feels so icky and unbearably hard when I’m forced to do them—so of course, I’m doing the logical thing to escape them by, yes, writing some more.
But I think there is an important difference here. In one of these situations, I’m writing about something from the absolutely riveting, obviously not-dry-at-all Collegeboard AP curriculum—but in the other, I’m writing about something that I actually think is very interesting.
And for some reason, the latter has more progress on it right now! Probably because I’ve felt compelled to spend zero time on Collegeboard—while spending time on this is actually a little fun. So is that what makes all the difference?
Do you actually need to enjoy what you’re doing in order to willingly work extremely hard at it? Maybe, if you’ve developed steel-hard discipline under pressure from outside circumstances, you’d be able to work very hard at something you hate. But would you ever be able to reach the pinnacle of achievement in your chosen field if you weren’t absolutely fascinated with your work?
So maybe curiosity is the greatest superpower—even though discipline might be harder to develop. Isn’t that a wonderful thought though? Just feeding your natural curiosity—as easy as eating a plate of raspberries—might reap greater rewards than trying to shove yourself into some form of rigid, try-hard discipline.
I’d like to set myself up for the greatest possible amount of success then, please. So no more choosing to do dull things that might have ‘great,’ safe rewards for me–since I probably won’t get as far than if I were doing something riskier, but utterly fascinating, to me. Is it possible to let curiosity do all the hard work for me, as long as I don’t let stupid conventions or rationalizations get in its way?
We’ll see. I think it’s really a privilege to be able to work extremely hard at something—whether driven by discipline or curiosity. But then of course, everything comes with a price: the pain inherent in such hard work is inevitable. This is where I really believe the universe is magical though; in the words of Haruki Murakami, pain is inevitable—but isn’t suffering optional? Curiosity might just be the magic cure for the suffering from hard work. And once I get past that stage, is it really too optimistic to believe that the world would then open like a flower, ready to be my oyster?
Now, time to get back to my AP work on the dreadful Collegeboard website … I hope the residual curiosity I feel from this post can help ease the sense of suffering and doom creeping in.
The initial idea for this post was drafted on July 27, 2021, semi-stolen from this essay by Paul Graham.