Edmund Burke describes how doing difficult projects shapes and improves us in ways easy projects cannot.
Thus it has been the glory of the great masters in all the arts to confront and to overcome; and when they had overcome the first difficulty, to turn it into an instrument for new conquests over new difficulties; thus to enable them to extend the empire of science, and even to push forward beyond the reach of their original thoughts the landmarks of the human understanding itself. Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a paternal Guardian and Legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.
(Quoted from page 141 of Reflections on the Revolution in France, by Edmund Burke. Yale University Press, 2003.)
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