by Jay Hiller, August 15, 2022
Photo by Adrien King on Unsplash
Driving to work a few months ago, I heard an interview with a professional rugby player. (I don’t remember who it was. I had the impression he was well-known and successful.) The thrust of the conversation was that the more successful he became, the less he enjoyed playing. He referred, I thought, sadly, to the time before he became a professional player. In that time when he could play without the pressures that came with playing as a job, he saw his sport as a medium for expressing his gifts.
That phrase, expressing gifts, stood out to me. We all have things that we enjoy doing so much that the time we spend on them doesn’t feel like work. Unfortunately, for many of us, it’s easy not to prioritize the things that bring us pleasure. Sometimes, as for the rugby player, the constraints put on us by others dampen both our performance and our enjoyment of what we’re doing. It seems to me that it’s important to establish boundaries in order to have the space to create and share as we please.
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