Effort Paradox
highlights
- Bernard Suits’s famous definition of games as “the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”
- The existence of “joyful workers” suggests that, even if the Effort Paradox applies to everyone, it doesn’t apply equally. Where you sit on the Meaningfulness-of-Effort scale probably reflects a changeable mix of nature and nurture. Some people will naturally be drawn to hard effort more than others, the research implies, but people also seemingly can learn to value effort more.
- without the possibility of failing, success is stripped of its meaning and sweetness.
- exerting effort “seems to be the key route, maybe the only route, by which you can fulfill certain needs, like the needs for competence and mastery and maybe even self-understanding. You can’t get those without pushing yourself.”
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