Your Work Is To Discover Your Work January 15, 2014
Posted by nrhatch in Happiness, Life Balance, Mindfulness.comments closed
When I stopped practicing law, I spent hour upon frustrated hour trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I didn’t realize at the time that our life’s work is to discover our life’s work:
Your work is to discover your work and pursue it with passion. ~ Buddha
To help sort things out, I reviewed my life experiences and created a list of clues to consider. This week, while sorting through my writing files, I found the list:
1. Time is our most valuable commodity. Once it slips through the hourglass, it is gone forever. Each option we pursue precludes other pursuits.
So many options . . . so little time.
2. I don’t want a set bedtime. I don’t want to set an alarm. I don’t want to play dress up. I don’t want to cart weighty litigation bags through snow and slush. I don’t want to waste time at the water cooler.
I want to spend my days “in the flow” doing what I want to do.
3. I want to be happy by making others happy and sharing what I’ve learned ~ teaching a class in Zen, operating a B&B on a sailboat, playing with kids, singing, painting, cooking, writing.
When we do what we love, we never have to work another day in our life.
4. The work we do adds (or detracts) from our joy of living. Before law school, I enjoyed working as a babysitter, a beer-tender at the Hoi Polloi, a food server at the Garden State Arts Center, and as the campus distributor of Exam Survival Kits at W&M ~ the kits contained candy, snacks, and a Crammer Hammer . . . to cram knowledge into over-stuffed brains.
Hey, maybe that hammer led me to Becker’s Hardware where I met BFF?
5. Silence your mind. Just be. Focus on your breath. Slip into the space between your thoughts. Meditate. In the silence of not doing, we begin to know what we feel. LISTEN.
When we know WHO we are, we know HOW to live.
6. Stop living by consensus. Be who you really are. Follow your intuitive impulses. Do what you want to do. When we switch from an external to an internal reference point, people find it much harder to manipulate us with insincere compliments and unwarranted criticisms.
Stop struggling against the current. Go with the flow. Let the future unfold.
7. Now that you know WHO you are, update your resume. Focus on what makes you, you:
Resumes should be
the ultimate marketing
tool ~ toot your own horn
Don’t feel constrained by past choices. You made your bed . . . you can unmake it. Consistency is consistently over-rated.
When the time is right, you’ll know it. Everything will coalesce. You’ll have the time, the experience, the idea, the spark, the inspiration, the ability, the enthusiasm to fulfill your life purpose.
Great. Now breathe. Relax. And let the Universe work its Magic.
Writing the list allowed me to embrace the uncertainty with a touch more confidence. Instead of feeling panicked at the idea that I didn’t know what was next on the Agenda, I relaxed into the flow of life with alert curiosity.
Aah . . . that’s better!
Ordeals and challenges may serve the purpose of shaking us loose from our moorings to set us up for important changes we can’t see or imagine from our limited time-based perspective.
Has that ever been your experience?
Related post: What is Your Unique Purpose in Life? (Ordinary Vegan) * Grow in the Direction of Happiness
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