So… I just got back last night from being in Mississippi since last Thursday. This was the weekend for our annual family picnic in Hernando, a little country town turning suburb not too far outside Memphis.

I used to say this wasn’t a vacation by any stretch for me - it’s quite a bit of work. Since I’m in charge of grilling (woo hoo) I basically spend most of Friday and Saturday prepping the meat and standing outside manning the grill. (I found out that I do indeed sunburn.) Plus there’s all the shopping and other stuff that’s part of the prepwork. And I usually end up doing this mostly myself (Lena does come with, thank goodness) before most everyone else gets down there.

It occurred to me just before I left, that even though it’s a lot of work to do, and I’m involved on the front end of things, that really I do love the parts that I do - well, the grilling anyway. I’m well on my way to becoming a barbecuing guru. Plus, that also means I can usually coast the rest of the weekend, letting everyone else do the cleanup and all that other jazz as they gush about what a great job I did on the grill. The fact that I’m out there for about twelve to sixteen hours in the hot Mississippi sun doesn’t hurt either.

So is it a vacation? I say heck yeah. Compared to the stuff I usually do during the week, this is kind of a getaway. Can it be tough? Sure, but it’s a labor of love. I honestly do enjoy almost every moment (I’d be more than happy for someone else do some of the prepwork).

The point is, event though some of it is indeed tedious or hard, it doesn’t really feel like work in the long run. The enjoyment I get while doing it, and the satisfaction of doing it well, really makes it seem effortless to me - though honestly it tends to feel more effortless after I’ve finished.

So I can call my weekend a vacation, even with all that hard work. And then it dawned on me: How often have I thought about a job or project being tedious and unpleasant and not been psyched about getting it done? Plenty. But what if I could reframe the work, and instead focus on the joy it brings me - whether I get that joy while doing the job or after it’s done. If I consciously choose to find the joy in the things I do, then it feels less like work - becoming more ‘effortless’ to me. And every job could then feel more like a vacation to me.