Get 'Er Done

If you're in a hurry, I guess you can skip over this first paragraph. It's going to be about how I'm sorry for not having written in a while, and that my excuse is that I've been really busy. Finished a great big paper for my Revelation class this last week, and that took a lot of time, so it's been hard to find a nice little block of time to write anything. Plus, I haven't really had much of a thought for anything to write because all of my mental power has been directed toward my homework and all of the other stuff I have to do. Blah blah blah. You've heard it all before if you've been reading my blog, because I begin half of my posts by writing something similar.

Which got me thinking (so you see, I really have had an idea!): I wonder how often feelings of obligation lower the quality of my work. Maybe this happens to you too. Often when I have a task to do that I need to get done, I get so anxious to get done with it that I rush through and don't make it as good as I could. I do this even if it's something that I really enjoy doing.

For example, I really like the things that I'm studying at Ozark. I like doing research on a passage of Revelation. I like reading books about what the atonement means. I even like reading Bible commentaries some. But for some reason, when these things are given to me as assignments and I have a deadline to get them done, I forget how much I like the topics, and I just want to get it over with. Because I'm so anxious to be done, I don't spend as much time on it as I could, and the quality of my work suffers.

It's the same way with preparing my sermons for each Sunday. I really like preaching. I like doing the research and the reading, and I like the writing. But because Sunday it always coming, because I have to get my sermon done, my sermons aren't as good as I think they could be. When they are done under obligation, my passion is lessened.

For whatever reason, I was born with an innate sense of obligation. I've always lived with a strong sense of "should-ness." I'm not very rebellious or risk-taking, because I tend to just think, "This is what I'm supposed to/not supposed to do." Normally, I don't even question it. I can't give good answers about why I'm supposed to do it, I just feel like I am. Maybe that's why I get so stressed out over assignments and deadlines. I feel obligation to get these things done. It's just what I'm supposed to do. And the result is that I focus so much on what I have to do, and not very much on what I get to do.

I guess what is needed is an attitude-shift, but it's not an easy shift to make. We need to learn to take genuine joy in our work. We need to learn to wake every morning and think, "What kind of things do I get to do today? What can I do to serve or to work?" Instead, what I find myself asking is "What do I have to do today? What is there that needs done?" And that's not a very good attitude to have. If I did have that sort of attitude, I would actually read back over this post right now and fix the grammatical mistakes and make it a little more clear. But I feel like I need to get it posted, because I have other stuff I have to do tonight. So I guess you'll just have to deal with it.