I’ve realized nearly everything I do is to help people become lazier. CSDI gives people stage designs and shows them how to do it. They don’t have to do their own research, they just get to build. Lazy.
Mopho.to makes it easy for people to get blog photos. They don’t have to take their own and edit them. They just cut-and-paste. Done. I’m even starting a new feature in Sunday| Mag that provides discussion questions to my readers, so they don’t have to think up their own to chat with their team about.
I’m realizing the key to my success is in making things easy for my readers. My job is to spoon feed content to them and even help them digest it. Yes, I make people lazy. But I’m not sure I’m okay with that. I worry I’m making people less successful by giving this all away.
You see, I think the key to any success I have is a butt load of hard work. All of these projects that make things easy for my audience, make things harder for me. I have to digest, edit, and rework all this content. And the source of any knowledge or wisdom I have in any of these areas is struggle.
Through my wrestling and pain I can help others avoid the struggle.
But without the struggle, they don’t learn. They don’t get the benefit of the process.
I’m not going to stop helping people. I’m not going to stop doing what I do. But I encourage you—don’t be so quick to have things spoon fed to you. Embrace a bit of struggle. Embrace a bit of pain.
Through your struggle and pain you’ll learn things that will make you successful. And you’ll learn things that will allow you to help others. (Even if it ends up hurting them in the end.)
Great thoughts! I’d think of it this way- people are overwhelmed in communications. Over the past 5-10 years we’ve been asked to do more than what was previously expected thanks to a drop in economy and increase in technology. Maybe you’re helping these hard working people feel relief in one area (i.e. finding photos) so they can work harder in another! 🙂
That’s a good perspective on it all. 🙂
What you are doing Jonathan is providing a service to the bride of Christ. I don’t consider myself lazy. I work full time as manager at a high tech firm and am a full time pastor a small growing congregation.
As I consider updating our stage to a more contemporary look on a budget that is limited by both time and money your work is extremely useful in extending the impact of the gospel by helping other stay relevant and engaging. The time I don’t spend learning about stage design and lighting will be spent in other aspects of ministering to our community.
Please don’t stop – your work has more impact than you know.
Don’t worry. I won’t be quitting anytime soon. I love what I do 🙂