Challenge, Work, Reward II

Challenge (noun):  A difficult task or problem; something that is difficult to do.

So this, as I was discussing yesterday, is the element that seems to missing from so much of my life at this moment.  In reviewing the definition, a couple of things immediately leap out at me:

1)  A difficult task or problem - that is not just enough.  Every day is filled with difficult tasks and problems.  The difference is that it has to be a difficult task or problem that is something that I care about and is motivational to me.  Continually performing the difficult without it being something that matters to you merely wears you down.  It may build up any number of capacities - strength, resistance, even skills - but it will wear away at the spirit.

2)  A task or problem - it has to be something concrete to solve, do, or achieve.  Ethereal concepts or things which are not something which can be acted on become frustrating in the extreme because there is nothing which can be acted upon to produce a result.

 Part of this, I suppose, is handled by how one defines things.  Am I defining things in the context of a challenge?  Or am I merely defining things as something that has to be done?  More fundamentally, have I gone through the list of things before me and defined them in terms of a challenge?  And if they are not definable as such, have I redefined them?

Have I even considered how I define the challenges that I care about for my own life?

The challenges are there.  Perhaps the problem lies not so much in them as it does in me to recognize and then define them as such.