FIRST BIRTHDAY: The Internet Grandfather has passed its first birthday. The first column was published August 9, 1999.
CHALLENGE
My dictionary tells me that, among other things, a challenge is a difficulty in a job that is stimulating to the one engaged in it. In this sense, I think we all welcome a challenge. If a job or other undertaking is too easy, we become bored, disinterested, tired. If a task doesn't require thought, skill, diligence, some effort, something difficult, we reject it. If a job is challenging, we enjoy it, we take satisfaction in completing it, we look back on a job well done. But there's another meaning to the word: A demand to explain, to justify. In this sense of the word, we can sometimes take pride in meeting the challenge, in our ability to explain, to justify but too often this sort of challenge merges into and becomes another definition in my dictionary: a call to fight, as to a battle or duel.
I see this often and I worry about it. I worry about it because of the hostility so often displayed, because of the reactions of others observing this behavior, because of the rejection of the value of a challenge. Those who reject a demand (request) to explain can't or won't learn. They won't gain the benefit of the challenger's experience and knowledge. But most importantly, they won't gain the benefit of self-testing, the pleasure of responding with a well thought-out answer, the experience of asking oneself the right questions before considering a task completed.
If we want to take pride in our work, to feel that a task is finished, we must challenge ourselves. To sail through life without ever asking ourselves the tough questions, without analyzing how we can make things better, without constantly testing ourselves, is to lose the fun of work. To receive a challenge we haven't already given ourselves means we haven't really completed a task, we haven't really done our best. This is where challenge in the sense of stimulating difficulty meets challenge in the sense of a demand to explain: When we make the demand of ourselves, we add to the pleasure of a task. When we make this self-demand a part of our routine in all we do, we improve our skills, feel better about our tasks, eliminate any feeling of resentment.
Enjoy the challenge of difficult tasks. Accept the learning experience of testing our answers. And try to be sure that no one else asks you a question or otherwise seeks justification for your performance that you haven't already dealt with yourself. You'll do better at what you're doing, you'll enjoy it more and you'll eliminate one more source of irritation and hostility.
8-14-00
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