Toiling over extra work,

The stuff I wasn’t asked to do,

I do it anyway,

To gloat, to show the world

I’m the one that cares the most

Or needs the praise to make me whole.

When I was training to swim the channel, I got really upset one day because training had gone badly. I had set out to do a six hour sea swim and I ended up getting out of the water after three hours. I’d been sick and the weather was awful and I was feeling cold. Everything felt stacked up against me.

However, I wasn’t upset because I hadn’t reached the six hour mark. I was upset because I went on Facebook and saw that somebody else training for the channel had done a seven hour swim that weekend.

We both went on to complete the swim and I actually did it faster than her, so that disaster of a training session didn’t actually matter. The sad fact was the I was upset because I thought it looked like she was a harder worker than I was.

I’ve had similar experiences in the work place, where I’ve almost felt angry that somebody has looked like they work harder than me. But I can’t understand what for?

I’m learning that the amount of effort you put in is important but it’s not the be all and end all. Why on earth would you want to be the hardest worker in everything? Surely it’s more impressive to get the result and prove you’ve done it with the least amount of effort possible. Then people will be much more likely to think you could achieve more.

So nowadays it’s all about getting the job done with the least amount of work. Life’s for enjoying, not for proving that you worked for seventy hours last week. You get me?

Much Love

Rachel xx