Hey guys, quick disclaimer here: these ideas are not fully vetted yet.
This is from a daily journal entry I wrote which became interesting enough to share. I haven’t looked into this topic much so, this was like an intuitive definition exercise.
Enjoy!
I heard someone mention that one way to estimate how successful one may be in moving through their life is to estimate their capacity for encountering, holding, and managing resistance. In other words, the level of success one is able to reach should correlate with one's ability to navigate resistance. Ever since, I've been contemplating what resistance means, both internally and externally, and looking at the ways I manage resistance in my daily life.
You can measure resistance by how much work one must spend to attain the solution to a problem. The kind of work one may need to expend is multi-dimensional and difficult to encapsulate. The basic form of effort is the inextricably linked mental and physical domains; all other forms of effort will be contained within or added to this foundational domain. For example, spiritual effort, time, money, and other people should be considered another domain, but fine motor skills would be a sub-category of the mental/physical domain.
Extraordinary skill in a specific domain of work will compensate for minor lacking-ness in other domains or uplift an already normal work-ability, but if one has an over-abundance of ability in one domain, other domains may suffer. Or the over-abundance may become a problem, in and of itself. One's ability to work must be balanced to meet life's resistance effectively on all fronts. Therefore, generalist, flexible (physically and mentally), and not overly-specialized people stand the highest chance for approaching the maximum amount of satisfaction in life.
It may be easy to equate work-ability with work in common parlance. Work is certainly contained within work-ability, but I see two kinds of work: Resistance Work and Flow Work. Most people enjoy and seek out Flow Work, think artwork, reading, and hiking activities which one becomes engrossed in. Flow Work can turn into Resistance Work depending on a wide variety of factors, but some effectively avoid this. The hobbyist is the archetype that quits their work once it moves from Flow to Resistance. Resistance work is closely related to work in common parlance, but it's less common for people to use "work" when referring to the Resistance Work of waking up in the morning.
It may also be easy to equate work-ability with a more scientific definition of merely energy output. This is misleading because is disregards the phenomenology of one's work-ability and performance of work.
Some people attempt to engage in Resistance Work only to make money and secure necessary and desired resources; people like this tend to have other areas in their life which can be toxic and under-developed. However, if they're successful enough in securing resources but have a toxic personal life this success can compensate and maintain their personal relationships to an extent, but this sustenance will not enable much of the toxicity to be resolved. So, if the toxicity is bad enough, one's over-compensation with resources may sustain relationships which one is better off letting go of. This is a case of one's over-abundance becoming a problem, in and of itself.
Other people disregard the money domain and generate more forms of resistance because of it.
I’ve noticed I can even sense emotions with their own kind of resistance. This is a difficult kind of resistance to navigate because it tends to color one’s entire perception of the world in whatever flavor the emotion invokes. Slowing my movements and thoughts down will lessen the effect of the emotion on my perception, but that’s only a bandage. I have to do Resistance Work to get at the root of the issue, poor thought patterns, and that takes time to change.
Does anyone else have similar senses about the effort they expend in life?