Chop wood. Carry water.
In Seth Godin’s book The Practice, he devotes a small section to the zen saying “Chop wood. Carry water.” (Shortened from “Before enlightenment: Chop Wood. Carry Water. After enlightenment: Chop wood. Carry Water.”)
He was discussing this in the context of keeping one’s actions focused on the core part of one’s work.
Simply just write. Simply just paint. Simply just compose. Simply just …fill in the blank of your craft….
Am I chopping wood and carrying water?
In other words, am I sitting down at my keyboard doing my real work?
Am I writing?
Or am I going down a Twitter rabbit hole, fooling around with my logo, playing with the latest new app software, or some other fun, yet “dysproductive” thing?
I hope it’s the former.
Wish me luck!
FYI: For those of you who want to read a deeper exposition on the “Chop Wood. Carry Water.” saying, check out Kyle Kowalski’s excellent blog post on this topic: On Enlightenment: 3 Meanings of the “Chop Wood, Carry Water” Zen Quote