During the gold rushes of the 1800s, miners scoured the earth to find “the color.” And like a miner swirling a test pan of gravel to find a flake of gold, it’s worth searching for something good in tedious, boring, annoying, and daunting tasks. A fleck of color in the gray.
Even if you don’t find any color, the willingness to search for it can improve your attitude toward the bulk of life, which is a conveyor belt of mundane stuff punctuated by moments of crisis and joy. Enthusiasm is a form of emotional stamina that can carry you through the inevitable muck of life.
In this blog and in your life, an idea will keep boomeranging: Sometimes gritty willingness is the purpose, can generate meaning when meaning is scarce.
Be willing to look for something worthwhile in any situation, especially when it’s not obvious. This mindset is especially useful when working with others, because it’s contagious. Point to the color when you find it. The more you seek the color, the more you’ll be surrounded by others who do the same.
Finding the color is not about pretending things are great when they suck. The trick is finding one small thing worth showing up for (the color), even if it’s just the story you’ll tell later about how spectacularly ass it was.
By carrying enthusiasm into what you do, you can bring your best even (and especially) when you don’t feel like it.
“Pick an arbitrary, stupid goal. Become totally involved with it and pursue it with vigor. And what happens to you in that pursuit is your life. Understand it’s stupid, but it’s not stupid to pursue. It’s the way to inject meaning into your life. Otherwise you’re left with this, ‘why bother?'”
~Kenny Shopsin, I Like Killing Flies (Documentary)
