Something I really feared and resisted, especially in my teens and early twenties, was to get a regular full time job. I saw it as a form of death – and I did not want to become anything like my parents. I perceived both of them as working too much, and as having lost that playful and youthful expression that could recognize in my peers and myself. Back then, I thought the problem was work.
I found various ways to avoid becoming part of the work force – until – I realized that this was a limitation I had created for myself. Once I understood that it was not work that was the problem, and that rather it was WHO I AM in relation to work, my entire perspective changed. I decided to pursue a university degree and from then on I have been committed to learning a trade and acquiring the necessary skills to become effective within it.
Fact is that work now offers one of my primary sources of learning and expansion in life. Obviously, this does not happen automatically. If I just go to work, and sit there, wait for the time pass, then I will be awarded with very few moments of expansion. However, if I make sure that I make work an equal part of my life, where I push myself to learn, expand, and move, then that is what I will receive in equal measure. Expansion does not happen by itself – it must be directed – it requires discipline and effort. Oftentimes there is a wall of resistance that must be broken down. And when I move beyond the resistance, there is a new world opening up.
It is this new world that I have come to enjoy so much in my work. Because it is not necessarily about the work in itself – it can be about the skills I develop that are indirectly related to my work. At the moment, I have been pushed to develop intimacy, empathy and social skills – and not directly in relation to the work I am doing – but rather as something that exist on the side and as a consequence of my primary work responsibilities. That is not something I would have been confronted with had I not been working.
I sometimes hear people complaining about their work and how they do not want to be there but rather be at home living and fulfilling their private interests. This is a limited way of looking at work. The solution is to make sure that regardless of where we are at, that we find ways to discover and empower ourselves. There are opportunities everywhere, however, in order to see them, we have to be OPEN and RECEPTIVE – and in order to ACT on them – we have to be DISCIPLINED and READY. To be able to master this approach we cannot accept and allow ourselves to remain in a state of whining and complaining. We have to be on our toes and READY to embrace whatever might come our way.
Today, I enjoy going to work most of the days in the week. The days where I do not. I see those days as my challenges. They challenge me to go beyond that emotion of resistance, and to make something out of myself and my day, even if I do not feel like it. Because if it is one thing that I have understood, it is that I can never wait for my mind to give me the get go. My emotions and feelings will never be ready. No, I have to make the decision – PHYSICALLY – through acting in the physical – through changing myself with actual acts in matter. Thus, instead of remaining in that state of depression and tiredness – I protrude my chest, I straighten my back, I push my shoulders backwards, breathe deeply, and start to look at what I can do to make the most of where I am – and I PROMISE – there are ALWAYS ways to move beyond the obvious.
Concluding: Work – a challenge and a gift to be lived and experienced fully – and today it is a opportunity that I am grateful to have in my life.
I have used the Desteni tools of writing, self-forgiveness and self-corrective application to manifest this change for myself. And through this process, what seemed to be dry and meaningless, has become a well of inspiration for me. For anyone that wants to know what is possible to be created – I suggest that you investigate Desteni.
