According to John Kelly of Mashed Radish , the word “hassle” may have originated from a blend of words that represent small, intense repeated actions, such as haggle and tussle or harass and hustle. To call something a hassle is to say it requires an annoying amount of time and energy while engaged in a series of small, intense actions. For example, navigating a bureaucracy to get a business license can be a hassle, as can carrying a heavy purse if you have to constantly switch hands/shoulders just to stay comfortable.
People may avoid relatively minor hassles even when it’s not in their self-interest to do so. For example, some taxpayers forgo tax savings to avoid the hassle cost of itemizing deduction. And homeowners will put off making their homes more energy-efficient to avoid the hassle of getting from here to there.
So if you want someone to do something, make it simple and easy. This is what businesses do to get customers to buy their products. Just one click and it’s yours! This is what governments do to motivate people to use their services. One-stop employment center! And this is why rich people get personal assistants. Delegate the hassle!
Boy, would I love a personal assistant: someone else to do all the calling, texting, talking, walking, driving, complaining, explaining, asking, comparing, decision-making. Of course, these things are apt to be less a hassle for an assistant than for me. Why is that? Because the more you do something, the more efficient you get at doing it and the more efficient you are, the less intense the experience of doing it.
Why less intense? Because efficiency is often the result of well-practiced, overlearned behaviors. You know what to do, what to expect, and how to deal with the unexpected, i.e., the whole process is less stressful. And what had been a hassle becomes less a series of separate actions, each requiring our intense and undivided attention, and more like a seamless whole. What had been do-this-then-that-then that becomes make a cup of coffee the way Jason likes it.
But a lot of hassles are too uncommon to offer an opportunity to acquire mastery. It thus makes perfect sense to want to avoid them. So here’s a question: how can we use the power of hassle to discourage criminal and self-destructive behaviors? More on that in later posts.