I’m convinced that the key to life is having low expectations and high standards. Low expectations for things outside your control. High standards for things within it. The recipe for a good life.
The brain does not hate hard work. It hates unclear effort. If it cannot see where the work is going, how long it will last, or why it matters, it starts treating the task like failure instead of a challenge.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got: If you want a calmer life, you need to address small problems while they’re still small. The cost of dealing with an issue rarely gets cheaper with time. Procrastination turns uncomfortable things into unavoidable things.