Hard work is the lie that robs you of everything worth having, and yet, every person who has something worth having has it because of hard work. This is called a paradox. I can't offer the key to solve the paradox, but I assure you, you don't have to look hard to find it.What you will have to do is accept responsibility. You must accept responsibility for yourself, yet claim no credit for your outcomes. If you are responsible for yourself, aren't you to blame for your behaviors, both the good and the bad? The answer should be yes, but it isn't. This too is a paradox.Did you choose where or to whom you were born? A silly question. And yet, when you were half sperm and half egg, you had to work exceptionally hard to outcompete all the others to find yourself.See, it's tempting to think of ourselves as the obviously active players. We easily identify with the hardworking sperm and neglect to focus on the patient, self-actualized egg even though we are half sperm and half egg.But science tells us the egg is a selective partner in our process. It releases chemical signals through the ovarian fluid that bias for certain sperm partners casting the whole drama of “youness” in a very different light.The hardest working sperm might no more get the egg than the earliest bird gets the worm, because the bird who waits on the rain is partnered with greater forces.Your failures might not be because you are too young, the wrong race, the incorrect political affiliation, the enemy religion, or because you have the wrong amount of money. It might be because so far you lack what's needed to succeed. You may not have met your egg. You may be living through a drought.But just as you might be starting to think the answer is serendipity, luck, uncontrollable, a paradoxical lash flays your back, because a sperm who never swims, can find no egg, and the bird who never hunts can never enjoy the rain.Moreover, the more dedicated the hunt, the more committed the pursuit, the greater the likelihood of treasure--of success, which is why most people will find what they need to succeed through hard work.Still, saying hard work is the key is suggesting that the outcome is predictable and measurable, and success is neither predictable nor measurable.Here again is the truth: Your life will change for the better to the degree that you embrace the joy of doing and deny the high of achieving.Why does joy depend on doing rather than having? I could give you the answer but then you'd have nothing to do, and I would never—by choice—rob you of your joy. Just the opposite. I long that we all live in our joy.It reminds me of the 2016 Chicago Cubs. When they won the World Series that year, I felt pure elation for twenty minutes, perhaps less. The emotional high then flittered away and by the next morning I returned to baseline.Contrast that with the 2016 MLB season, I frequently felt elated watching the #Cubs win and win. They dominated the competition at nearly every level, and the only real slump of the season happened around the All Star Break. Each win felt good, but the growing dominance, the team pulling away, the bats, the gloves, the smiles, it infected me.Then the 2017 season rolled in. We brought in some new talent, lost some old talent, and sat poised to repeat. The 2017 #Cubs started the season so spectacularly. I remember telling Ashley they were the comeback kings. Nothing kept them down, until they failed to pull off that last-inning rally.Once the magic rally run ended, the team disintegrated, losing both its chemistry and its joy. Suddenly, the narrative was all on World Series 2017. Could the team repeat? Could they even make it? What player would have to step up to be the difference-maker. Winning became the bar. What was done was judged, and impossible pressure was put on the doing, because anything less than victory was unimaginable.By the end of the Cubs 2017 regular season, I had a heavy heart. The team won their division, but it felt like a wounded warrior limping off the battlefield, and the playoffs proved that feeling true.Each season since 2017, the Cubs have felt, to my emotions, like failures. I feel like a terrible fan, and I wish I could recapture the feeling I had for the team from childhood on through 2015. I miss saying, and meaning, "There's always next year" when you could look forward to them doing better.My journey as a Cubs fan mirrors the journey we all have in life. It’s always best when we're focused on what we are doing and oblivious to where we mean to get.And let's not race past an important part of the journey. There's an old saying, "It takes a village" that has been mostly forgotten in today's culture. For the most part, we don't live village-style lives any longer. Instead, we live in suburbs, cities and walled-off multiplexes, cut off from eachother. Backyard patios and privacy fences have replaced front porches, and because of that, we forget that our neighbors have a cup of sugar when...
