What would you do if you could not fail? What makes your heart sing? What are you best at? What is the gift you have that serves, if not the world, then you? Both are important.It's a little bit like the question, “What would you do if you won the lottery?” and after quitting their day job, and dancing around the town square, there is something deep inside you that you’d love to do, for yourself. For the world.
The thing is, that if you know what that thing is, then why waste time not doing that thing? There are reasonable reasons of course, money, timing, training, and of course…fear. But life is both short and long. Our lives are very short in historical time, almost invisible in geologic time. Things pass fast in an eyeblink and before you know it, your time has come. But lives are also long, in their way, and can feel interminable, especially if we are doing the wrong thing, or even the kind of right thing like a shoe that doesn’t really NOT fit, but is occasionally giving you troubles and eventually you don’t want to put those shoes on and so you don’t go outside your house because you aren’t putting on your shoes.
That kind of thing, that not-quite-fit can make the day, the week, the month feel very long indeed. In this long and short, there is the now and the now asks, what are you waiting for? If you are not fully doing the thing you can do best, YOUR THING, what are you waiting for? Permission? From who? Examine that if you can. Timing? Maybe get planful towards the thing. Money? Such a demon, money. Scares us all. It LIMITS our belief in what is possible. There are ways to get the training and timing and money. It’s a risk in the short term, but honestly, so is working and living in a way that make you miserable. And I’d rather you (and by you I also mean me) not get addicted to the fear that keeps you from doing that thing, that best thing. Focusing on that best thing, and getting to that best thing doesn’t mean life will be perfect, but it does mean that you’ll have centered your best skills, your best self for the best thing. And I think that will make life sweet.
So, what makes life sweet for you? Now, I’m mostly referring to one’s career or work-a-day path, after all we spend 40-50 hours a week there. Some folks find the vision-vocation of their dreams and some folks fill that in around the edges with a 9-5 that doesn’t ask for much, but I’m asking, what makes your heart’s life work sing? What are you best at?
For me? It’s holding space for people. Listening. Reading rooms. Writing and speaking (performance of a sort). Helping people. Noting the things people are feeling. Naming things happening in human systems. Midwifing. Easing the way, so to speak. I’ve done this in the aggregate working with productions, organizations, and I’ve done it as a coach with individuals. I’ve rarely had a job where that was the main focus, though. I use those skills as much as possible in the positions I’ve had, but it’s gravy not the main course. Which perhaps has been something to pay attention to, yes?
I came across this quote by William Hutchinson Murray a very long time ago, but I’ve found it to be true. I have not kept it close, which I think has been a mistake. And I think it needs to be true for me again. You?
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!
Life is short, begin the now, now. Don’t wait. Let me know what makes your heart burst with joy in your work in the comments.
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