Is It ‘Sad’ To Work So Hard?

I spent last week with a hippie community on Ometepe Island in Lake Nicaragua. I ate green salads every day, attended group healing ceremonies, took part in eye-gazing exercises, and opened up about my feelings and fears. I’ll be on the lookout for similar getaways as I continue South.

 

I did a lot of thinking that week. Among all the people working to get in touch with themselves and feel their connection to mother Gaia, it did feel a little out-of-place to spend all my time thinking about marketing, PPC campaigns, managing ad spend, conversion rates, copywriting, ROI and profit margin.

 

That night, I was working away on my computer and a girl from Poland told me “It’s sad that you work all the time.”

 

Putting down my forkful of vegan salad and looking up from my screen, I saw her point. I was on a tropical island surrounded by loving people and I was being antisocial on my computer screen.

 

Maybe that was a little sad…

 

Then, I Checked My Numbers For The Day

 

This conversation took place last Monday. That was Cyber Monday, the online equivalent of Black Friday.

 

It was my best day of selling ever. I broke $1,000 in sales in 24 hours. For someone who’s relatively new to e-commerce, that’s incredible.

 

That kind of money is life changing. I made a good deal of that money while I was asleep and it looks like those sales figures are only going to grow.

 

I wrote my post about living on $1/day just over a year ago.

 

Putting in the work to achieve a goal can be exciting!

 

So, was the girl from Poland right, or was she dead wrong?

 

Under Certain Circumstances, She IS Right

 

Here’s when working hard is sad.

 

1. If You Hate The Work – If you hate what you’re do then you don’t just lose time. You gain stress and resentment. In the past I’ve done mind-numbing work that made me want to cry. That is ‘sad’.

2. If You’re Going To Quit – It’s sad if you quit before reaching your goal and all the effort is wasted.

3. If You Don’t Care About The Goal – Working on something you don’t care about is soul sucking.

4. If You’re Not Making Progress – If you work inefficiently the price of reaching your goal in time, money and effort will be very high. It’s sad to be a hamster in a wheel.

 

If you enjoy what you do, you’ve decided you’re not going to quit, the goal is important to you, and you’re making progress, then hard work isn’t sad at all.

 

It’s the natural price to get where you want to go. It’s your golden road to reaching your goals.

 

It’s a form of self-expression and it can be your labor of love for the world.

 

I often think of this work as exciting, creative, challenging, and a lot of fun.

 

Sad? No. That’s not how I would describe it.

 

Want to work with me to build your own e-commerce company? I’d like to work with you as well. Read more about the opportunity here.