I grew up with a wood-burning stove in the living room. It did a fantastic job of generating heat in the winter, though it was less fantastic at distributing heat throughout the house, but that was not my problem to solve.

My problem was feeding it a steady stream of fuel, and thus much of my forced child labor—sorry, I meant “chores”—centered around firewood.

I spent many hours chainsawing, moving, stacking, re-moving, and splitting wood. All phases of the process involved significant physical labor, but it is the splitting I remember most.

Log Splitting Tech

Logs must be split partly just to make them more manageable, but mostly because they dry faster, ignite more easily, and burn better that way.

I have heard rumors of new, hydraulic-powered technology that makes splitting easier, but at the time I was aware of only one device: the splitting maul.

A splitting maul is like a heavy axe (or a sharp sledge hammer). They weigh six or eight pounds, have a wedge-shaped blade, and are powered by teenagers, not hydraulics.

Although my dad would be quick to remind me that I procrastinated and complained (a lot), some part of me kind of liked splitting wood.

Labor of Love

What's to like?

Once I made it past the procrastination, I took pride in my ability to deliver the maul’s blade to precisely the right spot on the face of the log, swinging it in a wide arc to generate as much force as possible.

I learned to embrace and even enjoy challenges, because while every stack has logs that cleave neatly in two with a single blow, inevitably there are some—the gnarly ones with tough, twisted grain—that deflect the maul like hard rubber.

I became relentless in hammering those problem pieces, taking great satisfaction when I finally felt them yield.

Okay, Not Quite "Love"

Let me be careful not to romanticize the work. Splitting a cord of wood—a stack four feet wide, four feet high, and eight feet long—is grueling, and doing it every day would quickly grow monotonous.

No, life as a full-time wood-splitter would not be easy, but some aspects have understandable appeal.

With each gratifying crack, the “to do” pile gets smaller, and the “done” pile gets larger.

And when you send the blade ripping through that final log, staking it solidly like a victory flag in the chopping block below, the work is definitively, undeniably done.

Daunting as the task may be, it is finite.

Then I went to college and from there into the corporate world.

I was assigned large, complicated, long-term projects.

I worked in small companies that were resource light and workload heavy.

I worked in well-resourced large companies that distributed work as unevenly as the wood stove distributed heat.

I took on leadership roles. I became an entrepreneur.

Through all those experiences, I realized I had encountered something very different: an infinite wood pile.

The Infinite Wood Pile

For many of us, there is always one more thing we could be doing. No matter how many times we swing the maul, we feel pressure to pick up another log, and there are always plenty in reach.

The work we could be doing is effectively infinite.

This is dangerous territory. Faced with an infinite workload, people tend to run from the danger in opposite directions.

Some work harder and harder until one day they simply can’t.

Others give up before they even get started, paralyzed when they peer over the edge and glimpse the bottomless abyss.

Failing to realize the world is a sphere, they are surprised to find each other arriving from different directions in the same place: exhaustion, resignation, burnout.

It is a destination all of us would rather avoid, so how can we better cope with life’s infinite wood pile?

Hack Firewood, Not Stress

Productivity gurus offer many useful approaches:

• Create time blocks.
• Focus on one log at a time.
• Divide the work into smaller, more manageable tasks.

Hacks like those can be useful, but they are partial measures.

After all, that’s the bizarre thing about infinity: You can divide it into as many pieces as you like and it’s still infinity.

There must be something deeper.

Better Questions

To find out what, we might begin by asking ourselves what drives this sense that we should always be picking up the next log in the infinite pile.

Or, turning the question around, what are you afraid would happen if you didn’t? How would that feel?

What is behind the anxiety that has you unable to relax? What perceived dangers are you working so hard to avoid?

• Would you risk losing? Failing? Stagnation? Would it mean you are weak?
• Would relationships be damaged? Would you miss an opportunity? Would others no longer want or need you?
• Would you be letting others down? Would they be angry? Disappointed in you?
• Would things inevitably go wrong or fall apart? Would you lose control? Would it be your fault? Would you be blamed?

When we are tired, depleted, or just generally fried, these questions can help us discover what stops us from putting down the splitting maul mentally, even when we put it down physically.

Our individual answers depend on our circumstances, our life experiences, and our personalities. We must each find our own.

We are here to support and guide your search, but the sooner you start looking the better.

After all, infinite wood piles are everywhere.

One Final Reframe

Because we cannot avoid them, perhaps there is one final reframe worth remembering:

Life is verbs, not nouns. A process, not an endpoint.

Work is not the completed project, but your experience while completing it.

Life is not the neatly stacked cord of split firewood. Life is the splitting.

Until next time,

Greg