I've noticed a trend in my life that I seem to have exhibited my entire life: laziness. I've never been willing to put forth alot of effort or work, even when it was crucial to my life. When pushed, I can do good work; I actually learn very quickly. But I'm not usually willing to do things I don't enjoy. Math, for example. I'm impatient, another facet of laziness. I want to be a great writer, without study or practice. I want to be a musician, without learning how to play an instrument. I want to go to college, without studying for or taking the entrance exams. I want to be a psychologist without studying it. I want to do things and instantly be good at them and recognized for it, while people who don't live in my lazy, impatient self-delusion have to work for years to earn those careers.
I believe I have talents, and have the capacity to do good things with them. But if I can't get past this laziness, this impatience that seems very childish, I will never do anything. It saddens me that I want to do things and feel I would be good at them, but can't and must do things I hate in order to become good at the things I enjoy, and do them for a living. But that is life, and my complaint is something everyone has to live with everyday. Honestly, I'm thankful to God that I do have at least a faint idea of my talents and desires and some capacity to live them, where most people in the world never have either, and everyone else must struggle, as I must. Some don't even live long enough to try.
Some people idolize and even divinize work, viewing even the most meaningless labor as spiritually good. While that can be true, the spiritual is above all. With the right intentions and goals, I think work can be very good for a person. Persistent, difficult work, doing things you don't enjoy in hope of an outcome you desire, I think can be good, as long as one remains humble and thankful to God. Often, this kind of work can make the person arrogant, thinking they earned the outcome purely by their own effort - which is of course silly. Without God's providence of health, opportunity, assistance, and everything else, no one could do anything. So spiritual things must be the highest priority. But as many Christians recognize, especially the monastic orders like the Benedictines, work can be good. Hopefully I can learn this and keep it in mind in the struggles of my life to come.
