One of the greatest joys in life is to be fully harnessed—to have your potential called upon, drawn from you.

For a long time, I believed the opposite. I thought conserving energy was wisdom. Work-life balance as gospel. The idea that relaxation in itself is the goal.

Take it easy. Don't burn out. Protect your energy.

Here's what I've come to understand: the soul has a parallel to the body.

the body knows

The body doesn't do well when it doesn't move. There's a biological mechanism at play—we benefit from exertion. Our bodies build strength. We go further. We feel happier when we're exercised.

There's a certain joy at the end of the day when your body is physically tired. You can actually relax because there's no restlessness, no pent-up energy. Your energy has risen, and it has dispelled.

And then the cycle continues.

the soul deserves the same

The soul needs to be harnessed to feel healthy. It needs a purpose—something to move into and toward.

I've noticed this in myself recently. I have a very demanding job right now. Not something I thought I would want. I resisted the idea of working hard for something or someone else for a long time.

Why would I give my best to someone else's vision?

And yet—whatever this job has called me to do, the growth it's demanded of me, feels good. I feel harnessed. I feel like my talents are leveraged.

To be fair, my situation before was more complicated. Money-making work wasn't aligned with the work I actually wanted to dive into. So I had an incentive not to fully commit—to split my focus. My harnessing was fractured.

But when you can focus on something singularly, fully, and be thoroughly used up by it? There's a certain joy in it.

Not the context-switching burnout kind. The hey, I'm building muscles kind. The my capacity is growing kind. The kind where you look at your spiritual self in the mirror and say, hey, that looks pretty good.

the shift

I'm not sure who needs to hear this. But I know I needed to hear it once.

A coach told me, and it changed everything:

We shouldn't avoid hard work. It's not something to be evaded—it's something to be embraced.

Yes, balance is required. No, I'm not talking about grinding for the sake of grinding, or pushing endlessly to serve capitalist overlords. There's a place for rest, for joy, for community.

But hard work blanketly avoided? That's actually unhealthy for us.

Embrace the harness.