Hemingway Had His Disease. What’s Yours?

How much do you love what you’re working on? As much as Hemingway loved to write? Oh, and by love I mean obsessively tortured. And, I also mean love in the way by where if you don’t do it you’ll lose your mind.

Here’s how he put it in a letter:

I have to write to be happy whether I get paid for it or not. But it is a hell of a disease to be born with. I like to do it. Which is even worse. That makes it from a disease into a vice. Then I want to do it better than anybody has ever done it which makes it into an obsession. An obsession is terrible. Hope you haven’t gotten any. That’s the only one I’ve got left.

It’s good to keep a list of the things you have to do to be happy. It’s good to actually do those things too, even if you don’t obsessively need to be the best at them (but you may want to have one or two of those too).

A few of mine are listening to music, reading, moving/exercising, not talking to people (hey, I’m being honest here, a man likes his quiet sometimes), and writing these notes. If I do all of these in a singular day it’s pretty much always a really good day. Go figure. A good day isn’t so hard to manufacture apparently.

What about you? What’s your Hemingway disease or your milder “makes me happy” list look like? Click reply and let me know. I’m curious.