My husband and I recently fixed up our condo for sale, renovating it from top to bottom. It started out as a chore we just had to get through (and is why I was silent here for a couple of months) and ended up being so much fun we are talking about buying some fixer-upper just to do it again.
The most rewarding part was finishing the basement. Watching the walls go up and seeing a storage area transformed into a lovely living space made us both feel so accomplished. It was also the hardest thing we did.
I have always been drawn to activities that produce visible results,
like gardening and baking and building business software. There is something profoundly satisfying about putting in hard work that is rewarded with a useful and beautiful product that can make someone’s life better.
But the most important work we can do has no tangible results.
- Like facing down our fears so we don’t hold ourselves back from our potential or from life’s little joys.
- Or like reflecting on our lives with honesty so we can see the flaws that keep us from full maturity.
- Like being a person of integrity and pursuing excellence.
- Or like leading others to do the same.
None of those things are easy or fun all the time.
And they usually take a long time to show results.
Even so, when the results do come the reward is far better than that of seeing a dark basement transformed into a bright family room.
Because the result is that a person’s character has grown.
I think of pastors and teachers and mentors who pour their time and effort into the lives of others in hopes of leading them into lives of excellence, maturity, and integrity.
Sometimes those results are never seen.
Sometimes the results come, but long after the teacher and student’s paths have parted.
But other times the student is ready to learn and they grow and blossom under wise mentorship and become all that their teacher hoped for, and more.
It’s much different to invest in the lives of people than it is to put a roof on a house. Both are important and both produce results, but while putting on the roof is immediately rewarding, investing in a life, whether one’s own or another’s, may show no results for years, if at all. It is the most difficult kind of work there is.
But as you know by now, I don’t talk about walking away from the hard work.
I talk about facing it down and doing it. So while I need the satisfaction of doing work that shows (relatively) immediate results, I remind myself that such work can be found in hobbies and in small work projects.
The real work is in personal growth and investing in the lives of others, whether my children or my friends or my coworkers, so that we can all experience the long-term rewards pursuing excellence.
When my daughter was very young, I worried that she was too unaware of the people around her. I feared that she wouldn’t develop compassion and would trample on the feelings of others in her oblivion.
But she grew up. And now her teachers and fellow students comment on how she loves all of them and is so compassionate. She is the first to welcome the new kid and is fast to rise to protect those she thinks are being bullied. And she notices when someone in the family is sad or ill and jumps in to comfort them.
That change didn’t come after a week of hard work. It came after a decade. If either she or I had given up after a year she would never have grown into the lovely young woman she is today.
So whether I am thinking about my career or my family or myself, I have to think beyond immediate results and think about the future. I have to consider whether my choices and actions will result in personal growth or just give me the satisfaction of checking an item off my todo-list.
Because if all I do is look for the immediate reward, I will miss out on the greater goal of growing and helping others grow.
And while many things in life scare me, nothing frightens me more than the prospect of stopping where I am and never maturing further. I have lots of unfinished rooms and unpainted walls and I want the satisfaction of seeing them transformed into useful and beautiful things.
It is the hardest work, but the best kind of all.