Up At 5 Am And No Coffee? Are You F…king Crazy? Can The Effort Be Worth The Pain?

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How Can The Effort Be Worth The Pain?  Up at 5 AM….cold, dark and there is no coffee.  I am standing in mud and not sure what else. I was there to help enclose a family owned field outside a centuries-old village in Extremadura, Spain.

 

We were to put barbwire in the places where the fence was compromised.  For centuries piled rocks served as the barrier.  It was still standing but not well enough to contain or keep out livestock.  I could barely understand all the new Spanish vocabulary needed to do this job.  That seemed to be OK.

We ate breakfast around 9 am.  Goat cheese, spiced sausage, and hard crusted bread made in the village. The towel wiped (no antiseptic wipes used here) working hand of a friend served us as we gathered around one of the fallen rock walls.

Tired like I have never been tired in my life!

Returning to the cottage in the village I could barely move.  As I laid down, from exhaustion, I knew I would gladly rise the next day and do it all again!

So the question is “Is It Worth The Effort, The Pain?”  Was getting up working my ass off worth the result of the effort?  As Seth Godin states so well here,

The thing about effort is that effort is its own reward if you allow it to be.

This experience has actually taught me something.  In the past… while I love the physical use of my body and being in nature it was not how I measured my life’s “REAL Achievement and Success.”  Using my mind and exerting as little physical energy as possible was what I thought won the game.  “Working Smart” is what it is called.  I had lost touch with the complete experience of doing the “work.”

The simplicity of each task to completion has real value.  It is the journey.  The bank account is not always where the actual measure of value lies.  It’s in the “work” and what I saw when I took the time to notice.  The dew on the trees… the way the air warms when the sun rises.  How the cows in the next field noticed us as the walked by, the way, they do every day.

I know this concept existed for my “everyday” life in the US.  Why didn’t I think it had value?  I know I bought into the concept of by doing more I can be more or at least I won’t fall behind.  But that has all changed.

So would I do it again? YES, YES, YES!!!

 

In this picture, I think I was channeling Lucille Ball