Daily Endeavor Blog

How do you know if you’re on track toward doing something that you love? One of the best indicators is whether you’re looking forward to getting in there for the next day/session/read/write/etc. Looking forward to something of course doesn’t mean it will be easy or pure joy. Plenty of people have moments of anticipation for simply getting through the hard part, if only for continuing on toward their goal (taking the Bar exam, for example).

Nevertheless, there are some strides that people hit where looking forward is an expectation of doing something that truly turns you on. This is not dissimilar to Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s work on flow.

As I was reading Daily Routines‘ posts, the one on Ernest Hemingway struck me as an illustration of exactly this feeling.

You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and you know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again…nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.

Put Hemingway in the group of people who discovered his way into doing what he loved.