Do What?

Do What?

What are you doing? Oh, well, okay, I guess I know what you are doing; you are reading this. I mean, in general. Let me ask it this way instead:  How much of what you do, do you love?

Gotta say, I spent big chunks of my life hating what I was doing most days. That’s a heck of a way to live. My work was boring, unsatisfying, or unpleasant. I felt taken advantage of a lot. I was pretty stressed, and didn’t know what to do about it besides getting sick, so I was sick a lot.

I was what you could call ungrateful. I didn’t have a sense of being blessed with my loving friends, my nice home, actually having a job. I felt overburdened. I felt poor. I felt abused. I kinda thought you sucked. (Sorry about that. It wasn’t about you.) I felt entitled, but that my entitlement wasn’t being met. I undervalued the lovely things in my life, and inflated the value of the not-so-nice things. Oy, was life hard.

Little by little, I started to appreciate what I had. I noticed the value in my friends. I appreciated my home, and the fact that I had a job, regardless of how I felt about the work.

I put cracks into my entitlement.

Why do I appreciate my life? What makes me grateful for my friends? How do know I am satisfied?

I knew I wanted things to be different. I wanted nicer relationships. I wanted better quality things. I wanted satisfying work. Only trouble was, I had no idea what that meant.

So, I started to practice recognizing the value of the people, activities, and stuff in my life, and something weird began happening. Things kind of got a little better. My friends either seemed nicer, or they went away. My work seemed more enjoyable. The world seemed a little cozier, a little shinier.

And things shifted. The more I appreciated, the more I found to appreciate. The more I recognized the value, the easier it was to see. The more gratitude I found, the nicer my life got.

I don’t know about you, but that seems like magic to me.

The next thing that happened was I started to make different choices. More negative people left my life.

And, Lo, here I am, getting to write to you every day. My favorite occupation. What I’ve always wanted to do, even if I didn’t know it.

As we find our gratitude, we find our heart’s desires. I’m not talking about that darling pair of shoes, or the sleek cordless sander, but our true heart’s desires. And, from that place of gratitude, we find opportunities to realize our heart’s desires, and we have the gumption to take ‘em.

What makes me love my job?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 06062013