When Making Everything Easier Becomes A Curse

Ev Chapman
July 13, 2021

People often tell me I make things look easy.

While shipping every day is far from easy, the reason it looks easy is because I spend a disproportionate amount of time on the planning and preparation.

And I won't ever apologise for that

If you looked in on a chef during service you might be mistaken into thinking that shipping that many meals is easy. But you don't see the hours a chef spends planning every move and preparing every ingredient, setting up their station precisely so the work can get done with ease.

In the same way, I spend a big chunk of my time👉 setting up my station (my systems)👉 planning my menu (brain dumping essay ideas)👉 preparing ingredients (my notes and ideas in my Zettelkasten)

When I'm ready to serve, I assemble everything because it's at my fingertips and I can make the smallest of moves to ship it.

But, that feeling of ease can be a blessing and a curse

On the one hand, you are exerting far less energy but producing a lot more for it. But the downside is that as humans we are uncomfortable with easy. Everything has always been hard work for us, so we go looking for more hard work to fill the void.

Why can't we be content to just enjoy the present without filling up our plates with more busy work and hustle? Why can't we just enjoy being present? Why is it easier to tend towards hustle than it is towards ease?

I don't have the answers, but today I'm just resting in the ease of shipping.

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