In my employment as an author, writing is a burden if I concentrate just on the end--the published piece or the royalties I might earn. When I take that attitude, the writing itself is just a necessary means to an end. In that case I find it hard to start, and once I do start the writing drags along. Writing then is toil, not play. To make writing play, I must remove my focus from the end. I don't totally forget the end, of course, but I put it on a shelf in the back of my mind, so I can focus my attention on the process--the process of generating ideas and crafting phrases with which to express them. I can even convince myself that the end doesn't matter; writing is such fun that it is worth doing even if the piece is never published, never has any effect on the world, and never earns a cent. Ironically, when I succeed in taking this playful attitude, the end result is far better than when I don't. And the same is true for other tasks I do, including laundry, cooking, and lawn maintenance.

When we are exclusively goal oriented, we view the activity required to achieve the goal as a necessary evil, so we perform it in the most minimal way that we think will be acceptable. We do just enough to earn the paycheck, or to satisfy the boss, or to produce a meal that our family won't reject. In school we do just enough to get an "A" or whatever grade we have chosen as our goal. In contrast, when we allow ourselves to become absorbed in the process as play we sometimes achieve far more. For shear fun we may do much more than is needed to produce the originally envisioned product; and the product, as a result, may be far better. It may even become an artistic creation. That can be true whether the product is repaired plumbing, a mowed lawn, a meal, a legal brief, or an essay.