Loving What You Do
Not everyone has the option to "Do what they love." Somebody has to clean the toilets, sweep the streets, dig the ditches, serve the fries. We can't all be artists, CEOs, Kings, queens, pro athletes, and celebrities.
Whatever we do, we have the choice of being present to the job or not, to be or not to be while we work. As odd as it might seem, we also have the choice to do the job or not. If you are there, you have chosen of your own free will to be there. You may think you have no choice. "It was the only opening available." "I'm not qualified for the job I really want." "I've got a family to feed, a house to pay for, car payments to make...." "My disabilities keep me from getting a better job." "I should have a better job." "The deck is stacked against me." Maybe these things are so, and maybe, sometimes, they are just the story we tell ourselves.
Whatever the story, it amounts to giving our power and choice away, as if someone else or our life situation is forcing us into a dead end job. This is technically not true.
You do have a choice. You could abandon your family, you could decide to move to a smaller apartment, live on the streets, run away and join the circus, go to prison, or any number of other exit strategies. I am not advocating any of these, but the fact that you don't take them and decide to stay with your job IS A CHOICE. And it is YOUR CHOICE. You made it. This is amazing! This is a powerful thing you have done and you should celebrate it. Even if you think it is because you are choosing the lesser of potential evils, YOU are still doing it. It is an admirable thing to take responsibility for, because once you do, you are free. You are free to put your whole self into the job because you are not spending your time complaining or blaming someone else. You are free to be the best lavatory cleaner, door opener, dishwasher, or whatever, there is.
Why is this important? Because waking up is the only game worth playing. Waking up to your true nature, to the luxurious richness and wealth that is the real "You." AND, rich folk tend NOT to be the ones who wake up.
I'll bet there are more awakened dishwashers than there are CEOs or celebrities. This doesn't NEED to be true, it is not a cosmic law, but it does remind one of the bible quote about camels, rich men, and needles. It seems that people who don't make a lot of money, who don't have jobs with 'prestige' are the closest to realizing that it doesn't really matter so much WHAT you do as HOW you do it. This is a cosmic truth, not an attempt to pacify people on the low end of the economic spectrum.
Waking up is available at every moment to everyone. It can only happen "Now” and Now is the only thing you need to wake up. These is no other tool, nothing money can buy or higher education can provide that will give anyone a leg up on awakening. Nobody is richer in how much Now they ‘have’ than anybody else. Now is all there is. Now is always available; it is always and forever Now.
Realizing "Now" is waking up.
Everyone has unlimited access to it because it is always here, and so anyone can wake up as easily as anyone else. The problem is that the 'trappings' of power, money, prestige, and 'stuff' provide almost endless distractions to the realization of Now. That is the only reason why it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the ‘kingdom of Heaven’ (The "Now.).
So, as long as your job is not causing you physical pain, harming your health, or harming others, it is a vehicle for your awakening. It can actually bring you great joy and personal satisfaction if you were to decide to make it fun. Make it a game. Make it a challenge to see how great you can be at it. Can you innovate? Can you find more creative ways of doing your job? Can you connect with people in an authentic way? Can you turn your job into a meditation and your workplace into an ashram? It is your choice, your freedom, your power.
You have decided to keep the job, so why not decide to REALLY keep it? You are only disempowering yourself by staying with a job that you complain about. Don't like it? Quit! Can't quit? That's not the truth, certainly you can quit. You are afraid to quit because what happens next might be worse than staying in your job - the devil you know, etc. That may or may not be true, and it is an absolutely valid reason for not leaving a job you don’t like, buuuut why not claim your power and decide that you are choosing to stay rather than some outside force is preventing you from leaving? Why not stay-out-of-choice instead of not-leave-out-of-fear? Why not decide to stay and determine to be the best you can be at it? It is your decision.
A story to illustrate this.
I am part of a young energetic theatre company in the mid 1970s, converting an old recording studio into the first new theatre in Boston in over 25 years. We twelve 20-somethings have just purchased the building, the old Ace Recording Studio, for $125,000 and are doing all the demolition work ourselves. We work 14 hour days - shoveling decades of dirt, plaster, old tapes and records, tearing down walls, tearing out plumbing. The job is epic and daunting.
One day I undertake the relatively simple task of cleaning up an old slop sink in the basement. A slop sink is a deep, industrial sink used to clean things like mops, brushes, brooms, etc. This one is about 20 inches square and 18” deep.
To this day I have not encountered as onerous looking a task. The sink is filthy, caked with years and layers of dried crud, scum, grease, and the crusty remainder of hundreds of paint brush cleanings, - brushes got cleaned but not the sink. There is absolutely no indication of the color of the inside of the sink. Every square inch is completely covered by multiple layers of grime.
It will take me hours. I pull on my rubber gloves. Armed with steel wool, chisels, scrapers, Ajax, SOS pads and sponges, I attack. I work in broad strokes, wide areas, trying to get the job done as quickly as possible. Not working. The stuff won't come off. I start narrowing my scope and focus to a smaller and smaller area, trying to see some results.
Eventually, and this becomes the key, I find I have to work on just one little blob at a time, less than the size of a dime. It weakens, loosens, and fades. I work on the layer under that, then the layer under that one. Eventually I see shiny white porcelain for the first time. From that single beachhead I work outwards, one tiny section at a time.
Gradually my entire world becomes this sink, my focus narrows down so completely to the task that time ceases to exist. I have no thought of the finish, no concern for when I will get it done. Hours (apparently) pass by. I don't even beak for lunch.
I am actually enjoying myself!
I am enjoying giving myself up to this task which is no longer a task. I feel like the Michelangelo of slop sinks. The beautiful gleaming porcelain sink is there inside the marble-block grime of decades. I am bringing it slowly into re-existence. I am in no hurry.
I am in meditation and I know how to do 'it'. Here is the secret to meditation: any movement towards 'hurry', towards 'finishing,' brings awareness of time and chore. AND….. I am in such a state of mastery that I know how to get it back when I drop out of the meditative space. Before time and chore can impinge on my world I simply refocus my attention on the Now Task, the Activity, the “What Is”, ....... on Being!
It takes the entire day to finish the job. When it is done I just sit there with the same combination of elation and peace of mind that I have when I have just gotten high or received a standing ovation. The sink shines like a pearl set amongst the dirt grime and effluvia of the long neglected basement. Over 40 years later it still remains one of the high moments of my life. Imagine that! Cleaning a slop sink ranking up there with performance triumphs, awards, birth of children, falling in love, career success and creating award winning productions.
Why do I tell you this story? Find a way to enter into what you are doing - no matter what it is. If you are going to do it - then DO IT! If you have to do it - CHOOSE to DO IT!
