Reaping What You Sow. Eventually.
Sunday morning, 7am:
Scene 1: At the breakfast table.
Brooke is eating a cheese and tomato omelette. She is enjoying every delicious morsel. She interrupts her breakfast to change a nappy, break up an argument and pour the coffee. She returns to her breakfast and finishes her omelette.
You may imagine this (boring, suburban) scene is not extraordinary in any way. But, I'm here to tell you that it is extraordinary, in two ways:
- I have sworn, for years, that I hate omelettes. It makes me feel sick in the stomach to even think about eating them.
- The eggs and tomatoes in said omelette have been produced/grown in our own backyard.
Can you see how exciting that is? (Especially #2. Obviously. Because who else cares about #1?)If it wasn't for us feeding and caring for our chooks, the eggs wouldn't exist. If it wasn't for the time we put into watering and fertilising our tomato plants, that delicious, red deliciousness wouldn't exist. At all.Point being, it took months for our chickens to start laying. And months for our seedlings to grow, flower, set fruit and ripen. Those months saw us putting in lots of effort for seemingly no reward.Except - and here's the funny thing - I feel like I benefited a lot before we saw a single egg or even one red tomato. The work that goes in - the everyday, easy to forget, doesn't feel significant work is where the joy is. The payoff is wonderful, of course, but finding the joy in the work is exhilarating.I'm coming to discover that life's a lot like that.
If we can find the joy in the work, the everyday, the seemingly mundane, then the journey is actually as good as the destination.
Cliched, yes. But true? Also yes.This passage appeared in the most recent post from Courtney Carver, and it didn't just resonate. It rang the bell next to my head.
One of my favorite yoga teachers told me it took him years of yoga practice to touch his toes and when he finally did, his life wasn’t any better or worse than it was before. The joy isn’t always at the finish line. Beauty is not always found in completion.
Sure, the omelette was delicious (and I now have a standing order every Sunday morning from Sparky's Kitchen) but the real joy came in the work beforehand.Tell me, what work do you find the joy in? Do you think you can enjoy the journey as much as the destination?