Why You Should Create a Harder Life
I promise that you can find more joy by doing so.
Coffee.
For some, it’s a means to an end, with the end being a somewhat approachable attitude and a state of being that others can tolerate. It needs to be obtained as easily as possible, taste okay enough to consume, and conquer the job of waking you up for a long day.
For others, coffee is a morning ritual. Coffee is a work of art, where the journey to consumption is more satisfying than the cognitive awakening itself.
Coffee can be as simple as getting in line at the drive-thru, throwing in a pod and pushing play, or even pouring the slop from the communal carafe at the office.
Or, coffee can be as tedious as weighing out beans to the exact gram. Hand grinding the beans yourself to achieve the perfect consistency. Waiting five minutes for the water to boil, only to then meticulously douse the fresh grounds yourself for a few more minutes.
Only then do you get to enjoy that cup of goodness, and enjoy it you will.
Everything that used to be difficult is now easy.
We live in an era where everything that used to be tedious is now exceptionally easy:
Cars don’t just shift themselves, they can outright drive you to your destination.
Robots now clean your floors and even mow your lawn.
Your goods simply arrive at your door without much thought as to how they get there, or what you even purchased.
And yes, coffee can be brewed at the push of a button, without the need to even scoop the grounds yourself.
But what would happen if you purposefully made a daily task more difficult? What would happen if you built intentionality into a routine that could otherwise be devoid of thought?
Choose to slow down what could be fast.
Unlike me perhaps coffee isn’t your thing. There was a time, however, where it wasn’t my thing either. I fell victim to the communal coffee pot at work, haphazardly drinking whatever was left in the carafe to simply obtain that coveted caffeine buzz.
However, after one too many cups that tasted like boiled mud, I began searching for ways to improve my coffee experience.
It all started with a $15 purchase of a used coffee grinder at Goodwill. Sure, it wasn’t the best grinder that money could buy, but it offered a level of ownership over my morning routine. No longer was I drinking pre-ground batch brewed coffee at work, I was instead selecting whole beans I enjoyed and grinding them fresh for optimum flavor.
Turns out, beans bought off the shelf at the local grocery store are often months old. They’ve lost their peak flavor months ago and taste generic at best. So what’s one to do? Begin purchasing coffee beans from a local roaster that can offer peak freshness, further adding to the home coffee experience.
But the classic automatic drip coffee machine, can it take advantage of freshly ground, freshly roasted coffee?
Not exactly.
Enter the purchase of a $20 French Press coffee maker to take the idea of homebrewing to an entirely new level.
I’ve now found myself going out of my way to buy premium coffee beans, grinding these beans in the minutes before brewing, and boiling filtered water (in a saucepan, I might add) in order to brew coffee in a French Press for peak coffee experience.
In due time the journey continued by playing with water composition and eventually upgrading to a hand coffee grinder that offered a significantly better quality grind, all the while being easy on the bank account.
I went full tedious, turning what used to be thoughtless into a slow balance of art and science.
Find joy in the things that are tedious.
I link the words joy and tedious together because like it or not, much of life is tedious. Yet when we look at the times in life where we experience joy, it’s usually found in places where life wasn’t exactly easy.
If life is tedious yet we seek joy, it’s safe to say that the two will need to intersect every now and again. What’s awesome and truly rewarding is when we intentionally choose how these two will intersect.
For me and coffee, the entire experience has become a morning ritual of sorts. Each part of my tedious coffee routine brings little bits of joy that directly influence the rest of my day.
The precisely calculated ratio of coffee to water.
The action of manually grinding coffee and pouring boiling water over the freshly produced grounds.
The patience as the coffee and water interact to produce the end product.
Even the cleanup brings an odd sense of satisfaction when everything is complete.
All of this to find a seat on my couch in a dark living room, enjoying my coffee over prayer and a daily devotional.
You see, the entire experience produces hints of joy, finally culminating in enjoying the work of my hands while pouring over scripture.
A practice that I, yet again, find immense joy in.
My morning routine is slow, tedious. Yet my morning routine is intentional and starts my day from a place of joy, setting the stage for more joy to come.
Creating an intentionally tedious life.
To set the record straight, this approach to life is the exception for me, not the rule.
(Say for the exception that I still drive a car with a manual transmission. Talk about joy.)
Yet I’m coming to learn that this approach to life, an intentionally tedious approach, might just be the best way to go about it.
Intentionality is where we begin to take ownership in life. Since what is tedious and what is joyful will ultimately intersect, if we infuse intentionality into our steps suddenly the two can coexist.
Without intentionality, we are the proverbial leaf in the breeze, at the mercy of where the wind will take us. Sometimes the wind takes us to a place of joy. Other times we are taken to a place where the tedious feels more daunting than anything else.
I fear that many, much like myself, have plodded through life without much consideration for intentionality. Some joy here, a lot of anxiety there, and a plethora of reoccurring questions as to why things are the way they are.
If you have been lackluster in the intentionality department that’s okay, it’s never too late to discover what intentionality can look like for you. Here are some ways that an intentional lifestyle can be put into practice.
- Pick your tedious: What rabbit hole have you always wanted to go down but have never carved out the time or focus to do so? Better yet, what do you do every day that is not nearly as satisfying as it could be? Examine these areas and latch onto something that is tedious without being overly daunting.
- Embrace the little joys: When playing within this new tedious space of yours, take time to understand what parts of it bring joy. Does it bring you joy? Allow joy to direct you further down the rabbit hole as you uncover just what more there is for you to learn and discover.
- Examine the intentionality: Take a step back and acknowledge all that you’ve uncovered through the intentionally chosen intersection of tediousness and joy. How has your life been impacted? Has it been a net positive or net negative? Are you learning new skills that you could apply on a larger scale? Are you developing passions in areas you didn’t realize interested you? What’s next in your journey?
My hope for you is that you’ll come to find that this small-scale experiment of intentionality will catapult you to bigger, more ambitious future endeavors. Once joy can be found through the intentionally tedious, it’ll be easier to continue flexing this muscle in other untapped areas of your life.
Today I prefer brewing coffee with either a Hario V60 pour-over dripper or with an Aeropress. I’ve also come to find that:
- I can indeed read the entire Bible in a year
- My ADHD is allowed to be both a strength and a weakness
- Maybe I should give cold showers another go
- Eating healthy doesn’t have to be so daunting
- Working out doesn’t have to be a daily 5K
What can you come to find out about yourself? What would life look like for you if intentionality was infused into your daily routines?
Would the tediousness of life get you down?
Or will you find joy at the point of intersection?
It’s your turn to find out.
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