saying no to sisyphus

Everyone knows the story of Sisyphus, sort of. He was the guy in Greek mythology with the boulder, right? He rolled the boulder up the hill, and it rolled back down, and then he rolled it up, and it rolled back down, ad infinitum. That's him, right?

Along comes the 20th Century and Sisyphus is celebrated as an absurd everyman. We're all Sisyphus now, rolling our metaphorical boulders up metaphorical hills and down they come again and up we push them again, over and over again, until we die.

Except ...

1. Sisyphus was a bit of an entitled jerk, and the boulder rolling was a punishment. I mean, the guy was a king who didn't like to honor his contracts, thought he was smarter than everyone else, and was disloyal to everyone but himself. The boulder rolling occurred in the Underworld, not in this one.

2. We tend to overapply the term to mean anything repetitive (or I do anyway). Sometimes, doing things repetitively is a means of meditation, and is not meant to be a source of frustration. Think of knitting or prayer beads or deep breathing. 

3. We tend to feel something is Sisyphean when it doesn't come to immediate fruition, in some cases within our lifetime. That doesn't mean it's not meaningful. He was rolling a boulder. For what purpose? For no purpose. But what if that boulder were something like, say, advancing educational opportunities for more people or civil rights? You're not just pushing for yourself.

4. With a growth mindset, failures or setbacks --think of that stone rolling down --are a learning opportunity. If we start again, it may not be the same boulder --maybe we modify it before we start rolling it again, or perhaps we don't tackle that hill the same way, or maybe we modify the hill, or develop new tools, or maybe we ask for help. Or maybe that boulder was one we tried to tackle many different ways and it didn't end up being one we could successfully roll. That happens. Sisyphus couldn't leave --we can, after we give it a try.

So Sisyphus is simplistic. We're not Sisyphus --we don't have to be.  We may roll some heavy stones, but we try to be conscious of which stones we roll, and how. Oh, and if you feel tired from pushing that rock? It's understandable. Sisyphus wasn't allowed to take breaks, but you are. 

Happy end of 2017.