What is it about effort that so many are afraid of? ...that makes us too willing to let those who do it, do it? We love stories about the effort involved in over-coming. But, we don't really want to work any harder than we have to. What do we believe, when we behave this way?
Perhaps, we should consider what drives effort? More often than not, it seems to me, effort is driven by desire. We want something. It we want something bad enough, we will work for it. At other times, desire is driven by need. We need something, so we will work for it. And, when the chips are really down, our need can be even more basic, like the need just to survive.
Maybe we don't put out too much effort because we really don't need to. We already have the better part of what we want without having to work very hard for it. But, under this reality, I suspect we are missing out on something good that was intended for us as humans, something that is a result or by-product of effort.
Are we simply caught up in the exceptions of cause-and-effect? For example, sometimes the results of effort don't come just because of the effort. But, just because that is true, it doesn't mean that most of the time results do actually come from effort; thus the common phrase, "you get out of it what you put into it". The problem shows up when we require that they do, when we put forth effort because of the results, for the sole purpose of achieving the results we want. When we get here, we get mad when we don't get what we want, especially when we've worked hard at something and it didn't yield the result we were hoping for. When we are here, we find ourselves operating with a sense of entitlement -- I am owed the result just because of my effort.
We, however, were created differently, to act differently, to believe differently. We were made to be care-takers in life, to preserve it, to offer it. And, this requires effort, a working at it. But, the real granting of life is a harmony with the Giver of life -- the One who can make things grow. We can plant seeds, but we can't make them grow. So, our effort isn't owed a result, but it does join in harmony with the results that can be given. This is why we are free to work hard, in fact created to work hard, not because of what we will get out of it, but because of what is broadly given when we join something good that we were made to take care of.
