Chop wood, carry water

I recent­ly read Carl Richard­s’s per­son­al finance book The Behav­ior Gap, in which I came across this quote that struck a chord with me:

When the Zen mas­ter Wu Li was asked what to do to achieve enlight­en­ment, he respond­ed, “Chop wood, car­ry water.“

When he was asked what to do when you have achieved enlight­en­ment, he
respond­ed, “Chop wood, car­ry water.“

Maybe hap­pi­ness comes eas­i­est when we are so busy work­ing, tak­ing care of
kids, shov­el­ing snow, or clean­ing the house that we for­get to look for it.

Page 66, The Behav­ior Gap

That’s pre­cise­ly how I derive my hap­pi­ness: from bor­ing and mun­dane tasks. So it felt reas­sur­ing to see that def­i­n­i­tion of hap­pi­ness men­tioned in a pop­u­lar book!

The book also has a fan­tas­tic set of sketch­es, which you can check on the Sketch Store on the author’s web­site.