# Joy as reward is unsustainable <div class="pills-container"><span class="pill">Last Updated: April 12, 2026</span></div> Here's why I don't believe in having joy as reward: - When joy (rest, play, unstructured time) is contingent on productivity, then it start becoming an instrument of debt (you have to earn the right to experience joy). - The problem is that you end up doin the work because of obligation and not of genuine interest. I think that degrades both the work and you as the person doing it. - You need to experience joy in order to fully recover. Depriving yourself of it is mean to yourself. Decouple joy from your performance so both can be reliable. You need to be consistent on your performance without it being dependent on whether you will experience joy after or not. You need to feel joy without having to be productive. That consistency is also what [[Mastery in any domain signals capacity to acquire hard skills, not domain knowledge|mastery]] and [[Research taste lives in specifically non-obvious territory|research taste]] actually require. You can't develop either through obligation-driven bursts.