Richard II’s famous lament: “I live with bread like you, feel want, / Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, / How can you say to me, I am a king… - Cal Newport

Deep work should be a priority in today’s business climate. But it’s not. I’ve just summarized various explanations for this paradox. Among them are the realities that deep work is hard and shallow work is easier, that in the absence of clear goals for your job, the visible busyness that surrounds shallow work becomes self-preserving, and that our culture has developed a belief that if a behavior relates to “the Internet,” then it’s good — regardless of its impact on our ability to produce valuable things. All of these trends are enabled by the difficulty of directly measuring the value of depth or the cost of ignoring it.

We like to think of innovation as striking us in a stunning eureka moment, where you all at once change the way people see the world, leaping far ahead of our current understanding. I’m arguing that in reality, innovation is more systematic.

A job...is a way to pay the bills, a career is a path towards increasingly better work, and a calling is work that's an important part of your life and a vital part of your identity.