On my relationship to work

If we give everything we have to work, then we need to be prepared to let work take everything we have. For a long time, I took pride in giving everything I had to Uncharted. I convinced myself that great sacrifices were required to achieve great things, and those sacrifices were often more self-created than externally-imposed. Work had become too close to me somehow: the distance between who I was and what I was doing was shorter than I wanted.

If we convince ourselves that greatness is a product of sacrifice, then we come to believe that the costly, personal sacrifices we make are not warning signs or ineffective approaches, but rather markers of our progress towards our future vindication and triumph. I’m learning that a healthy relationship to work is a daily negotiation between the different parts of ourselves: the endless ambition of our minds, the finite capacity of our bodies, and the mysterious emotions wrapped up in our identities.