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A dimension of happiness

 


One of the dimensions of happiness is the relationship of obligation to power. Then word "obligation" here you can take as you like: it may be entirely voluntary.

If a weightlifter has the ability, (which I like to think of as the power) to press X pounds, then pressing x - 50 may soon get boring, and trying to press X + 50 may soon get frustrating. Pressing at or trying to press just above your power is happiness.  

If an office worker has overly difficult tasks and tight deadlines, he will typically feel frazzled, frustrated, burnt-out.  Give him overly easy work and you have to opposite problem.  Bored, listless and maybe again burnt out. Give him something in the zone, within his power or stretching the upper boundary of it and the work is fascinating and absorbing. 

In precisely this connection, I think someone should write something elegaic about rejection slips. When writers used to send tangible manuscripts out by mail, they/we would get something equally tangible back -- a thin envelop with a kindly worded rejection slip inside. The pile of such slips became a point of pride for some. Since the advent of email ... a world of proper rejection and consolation has been lost.

A pile of such slips accompanied by a rare acceptance can keep the aspiring writer in the zone. "Of course it's not easy. It isn't supposed to be. But I am not disheartened by THESE (waves at big pile) because I have overcome it and gotten this recent publication in Folical Challenges News and Views.

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