Harder to Think than to Do

I've had some rather rough shifts at work lately, finishing well after 2am in the morning, that sort of thing...

Just today I was reminded of something I read once about Ajahn Brahm. I think the story was that he was a young monk in Thailand, pushing a wheelbarrow while building a monastery. He complained to another monk how hard it was to push a heavy wheelbarrow, and the monk replied: "Pushing the wheelbarrow is easy, thinking about it is hard."

It's amazing how true this actually is. Especially when it comes to mindless manual work where there really is almost nothing to truly get "stuck on" mentally. This concept probably goes a long way to explain why I ultimately find the stresses of manual labouring type work much easier to tolerate than the stresses of "knowledge work". After all, you can't really avoid thinking about the work when the nature of the work is almost entirely mental.

Something to remember I guess. Every time one gets stressed over how "hard" a certain mindless chore or errand is going to be. It's easier to just do it than to think about doing it. ie Just go through the motions and find freedom from it on the other side.