Is it possible to have fun while working hard? A common question to which most have ready answers and with most of them grouped under, Yes – if you are working on something you are really passionate about.
My argument here is to flip this to: can you force yourself to become passionate about the things you need to work hard on, and in this way, start having fun while doing it?
Put another way, is there a hack to enjoy every challenge (and by extension the work that bundles with it) but training ourselves to appreciate the interestingness of it? The assumption here is that once something becomes interesting, it is a fast-track path to becoming a passion. Passion being a broad over-arching term here.
Say you are working on a legal dispute concerning a contractual law. Sure, there’s money involved and that has real implications. But the dispute will have it volleys and curves, and correspondingly, peaks and troughs. How you deal with these variable dynamics is completely dependent on how you approach the dispute. If its focused on outcomes alone, then my guess is that the whole journey will be dramatically stressful. But, hypothetically, if its focused on understanding the intricacies of contractual law, figuring out ways in which you can secure help, talking to lawyers and friends about the options on the table, determining creative strategies for negotiations, and building a rich understanding of contracts and how it works, then it can be a fascinating journey to understand a hitherto strange realm (contracts) or vocation (law). Money becomes the skin in the game, which we all know serves as an excellent teacher. Well then, which one of the two approaches above would serve you better in the long run?
Recently, I find myself gravitating to this belief that anointing joy and fun as an organizing principle in life has a lot of merit to it. Its a mindset shift that is likely the hardest thing I could do, but it can be the lifelong, organic painkiller that evaporates existential agony, removes stress, and adds a rich flavor of settled pause into your life that is worth pursuing.
Arguably, religion – in an elaborate and overtly bureaucratic way (as happens with most age-old businesses) – tries to help with this through concepts of nirvana, enlightenment, salvation, heaven etc. Most religions profess adopting a love for the journey not the outcome, which is kind of the same thing as making space for joy in the things we do, not the things we get/attain.
To get interested in a chosen domain isn’t as hard as it seems. Dig deep enough, and you will find rabbit holes and insanities and super natural claims and business ideas buried within it. You can choose the flavors of interestingness that you like and plod along the path deeper and deeper until it starts forking out further into adjacent realms, broadening your aperture and an infinite labyrinth not unlike Borges’ library.
You do need to keep an eye out for it though.
Describe the tongue of a woodpecker ~Da Vinci.
Jargogled Impressions. 
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