I’m not sure how I got from the Brother Lawrence text linked below to today’s post. Feel free to posit your theories in the comments.
L A W R E N C E × J E F F
chapter · 6
part · 1
Hard things are valuable.
Easy things aren’t worth much.
But there’s no universal distribution
of easy and hard.
As a graphic designer, I do things every day that would be difficult or impossible for my colleagues. My work impresses them because what I do seems hard. Most of the time though, my work is not hard for me. My talent, skills and experience make it easy.
(I’m not coasting. I take my work seriously. I push myself to make my work more creative and effective, but there’s an ease to it.)
Because I’m the one doing work that feels easy, I have a tendency to undervalue it. That’s a mistake. My work has high value because
most people can’t do it and
I create things that my company needs.
There are things that are easy for you but hard for most other people. Are you undervaluing those things because you think about them from your own point of view instead of the majority’s?
i.e.
You: [Thing I do] is really quite easy.
Most Everyone Else: How does she do that? It’s really freaking hard!
Are you making those easy-for-you/hard-for-others things visible so that people will ask you (and pay you handsomely) to do those things for them?
If it was easy, we’d all be making potions.
More on this tomorrow.
Grow slowly
Jeff
My daughters marvel at how I can take any food available and gourmet the crap out of it🥬🧈🍳🫚🥐
This has happened to me a couple of times at work now where managers have employed new people to take some of the strain from me. But not considered the skills required for the job - and thought that anyone can do that.