Passion and your job

What in your life is so precious that you wouldn’t change your lifestyle because of it? Is there something in your life that is holding you back from reaching for your passion?

Do you think there’s no point in finding a job you enjoy? Do you feel that it isn’t worth it to pursue your passion because, after all, a job is just a job? Do you believe that the majority of your waking time should be spent doing something that you don’t even enjoy and provides no satisfaction?

Can you honestly tell me that you are following your passion and living to your best by staying in a job that not only does not satisfy, but may even contradict your own morals and beliefs? Why does a purpose matter?

By being true to yourself, and being honest about how you think your time should be spent, you open up more doors than you could ever imagine. Physical belongings are not permanent. Where we live, what we eat, our décor and our entertainment, these things are all perceived needs.

Sure you need to eat, but do you need to eat the top quality, shipped from across the world food? Or can you look in your area and find local farmers and vendors who are selling food of equal (or greater) quality for a decent price? Or could you take part in a food-share or community supported agriculture (CSA)? This will provide you with fresher foods that are grown close to home and that don’t have miles of airplane or train gasoline attached to their history.

Of course you need somewhere to live, but do you need the five-bedroom, four-bathroom mansion, or the three-bedroom townhouse? Or could you just rent (or own) a small house or apartment that fits you (and whoever lives with you)? If leaving your residence now is not an option, there are plenty of people looking to rent a room. This would provide you with extra cash in pocket while keeping your residence.

Entertainment is what you make it. Having every cable channel is not going to make your life more satisfying (it may even be a huge detriment to your life and health). Adding on every possible unlimited plan on your phone because “you never know” if you’re going to talk for 2500 minutes in one month (highly doubt it!) just wastes money because you’re paying for benefits that you’ll never use. Subscribing to “On Demand” for every show you want to watch that isn’t on your regular channels is a waste of money; instead consider watching your shows on your computer (project-free-tv) for FREE! Or you could even sign up for NetFlix , where you can stream videos and TV shows onto your computer for somewhere around 9$ a month.

“This is a classic situation where many self proclaimed ‘realists’ will be quick to jump on. They constantly cite it as an example to justify (to themselves or others) why they are staying on in a passionless job they do not feel strongly about. They keep lauding about earning money, having to pay bills, living up to responsibilities, etc without any seeming end point. They harp on how they are not pursuing their passion because it will lead to nowhere. They advocate staying on in their current path as the ‘safer’, ‘more practical’ route.” (source: http://celestinechua.com/blog/pursuing-your-passion-with-no-money/)

Are you allowing your fears to hold you back? Do you let what other people think you should be doing affect what you are doing? By allowing those around you to dictate your life, you release any and all control that you have over your life choices. It’s time to take it back. Your life is yours to live, not for others to live vicariously through you.

Simply because someone else succeeded at doing one thing does not mean that it is the right thing for you to be doing. Each person, no matter what they’re lot in life, has the potential to do something great. Something that means more to them than anyone else. All it takes is to look for what that something is, and go for it.
Maybe you can only pursue your passion for an hour or so a day right now, maybe more. Every single moment that you put towards your goal puts you that much closer to satisfaction. The 5 minutes, or 5 hours, that you put towards doing what makes you feel fulfilled will create more than just satisfaction, you will be sharing your love and your passion with the world. By sharing, you will also find others who share your passion, and it will only snowball from there.

Don’t know what your passion is? Try this exercise at Steve Pavlina’s site: How To Discover Your Life Purpose.It may take longer than 20 minutes, as he mentions. If you’re really stubborn it could take an hour or five. But stick to it, and you will not be disappointed. Let loose, free your mind, and discover what your subconscious has hidden away.

By discovering what it is that you truly want to do in life, and discovering a way to benefit from it financially as well as emotionally and psychologically, you will open your eyes and mind to the beauty of this world.
There is a point to enjoying your job. That point is happiness, satisfaction and contentment. How can you be content if you spend 8 hours a day doing things you don’t enjoy, which gives you no satisfaction to completing it? Simple answer, you probably can’t. So find your passion, find something that truly inspires you, and go for it.

Peace and serenity,

Simply Me

Inspiration

Finding your own inspiration is easier than you may think. for me, I can do one of the following for inspiration.

For inspiration to write non-fiction
I may read acticles or other informative sources on the subject of interest.
I may think of a topic to write about, and then just write out my opinion of the subject.

These two things give me a concrete starting point and open the door to add more information as it comes up.

For inspiration to write fiction
I may read a novel (or three) from the genre I want to write about

For the novel I started for NaNoWriMo, I was reading Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series. It is a very different and unique perspective on the fantasy genre and it really piqued my interest

I may listen to upbeat music

A lot of people can listen to music with no lyrics to hype up ttheir creative energy. Personally, I can't focus on anything to 98% of wordless music. I'll just play anything upbeat. My playlist right now includes Glee, Adam Lambert, Lady Gaga, and many many others. It keeps my mind active and since I only listen to it passively the lyrics don't end up in my work.

This works with some non-fiction as well, but it depends more on the subject.

For other important things that involve action

Usually I really have to think of what I call a "consequence worksheet." This is rarely actually a 'worksheet' in that it is usually in my head and not written down or typed up. I will pick an action that I want to do, for example: yoga, and I work out the positive and negative repercussions of completing or not completing the action.
I have only begun doing this consciously recently and I am still experimenting with following through on optional consequences.

Other things I do to stay inspired

I will write out lists of thoughts and ideas, often giving each individual thought at least two full pages for full expression.
I am trying to meditate and expand my abilities of this skill. I am told it is learnable, so I try it. It does seem to help.
I also will talk to my wife. I will confess that many posts, musings, and rambles are based on conversations that her and I have had that cause the ideas and words to bubble around in my mind until I express them through the written word.

What do you do to inspire yourself? It can be for something as simple as getting up in the morning and eating breakfast. Or something as complex as bringing yourself to start programming a huge computer program. Or anything in between.

What keeps you going when you don't want to do anything?

Peace and serenity,

Simply Me

Anger management isn't only for aggressive anger

I have been listening to podcasts about anger management, and recently completed the Anger Survey from whatsgoodaboutanger.com, and it turns out that I have a serious anger problem.

You wouldn’t think it looking at me on a regular day. I don’t snap at people, and I rarely yell or raise my voice. Instead, I tend towards the covert and internal forms of processing anger. I take it out on myself, often, and I can also be (very) passive-aggressive. Sometimes I will do something passive-aggressive and not even realize it because it has become so second nature to me.

I tend to withdraw, pretty badly, when someone does or says something that upsets me. This, at least in part, is because I never learned how to properly process my negative and unproductive emotions and for many years just pushed them aside and pretended they didn’t exist. This is not effective, and now that I am becoming more self-confident the negativity is coming out more and more often.

The anger and negativity just comes up so slowly that I can rarely catch it, and often don’t realize that I am angry until I am almost fuming. In the podcasts I have been listening to, it seems that there are many types of anger.

There is righteous anger, in which an angry and assertive response is not only appropriate, it’s the best (or one of the best) way to resolve that issue. Anger is a natural response to unjust and unfair occurrences, and when it is kept under control can be very helpful. When someone does something wrong, it's very normal and natural to react with immediate feelings of anger. When this happens, you don't want to fly off the handle or make a cruel or hurtful remark, because that won't fix or help anything. Take a moment, maybe a few, to collect your thoughts to determine why you got angry. Then express your sentiments based on facts and personal opinion.

Example: I'm feel hurt that you forgot to meet me for lunch, it really made me feel unimportant. Do you think next time you could give me a call or text message to let me know you might be late?

This expresses your feelings of hurt, betrayal, resentment and insecurity in a calm and easy to understand manner. There are no ways to deny that what happened made you feel a certain way, so using statements based on feelings is a good way to express your hurt without attacking the other person.

I have such a hard time expressing my emotions because it does take me a while to fully process and understand them. Often I will just internalize any hurt feelings and pretend that nothing is wrong. All the while, a violent tempest swirls and grows inside my mind and my heart. I take it out on people who don't deserve it, while those who do deserve it get away with everything. It's frustrating for all involves, apart from those who ticked me off in the first place.

How do you handle your anger? Do you bottle it up, let it slowly leak out towards others, or do you tend to blow up? Or do you actually manage to control your anger to the point that it helps you resolve your issues?

Peace and serenity,

Simply Me

Monday Musing: Work

Having worked in a variety of fields, I can say with some meaning that having to work for a living doing something that is not fulfilling kind of sucks. It doesn't make you feel better, especially when you work in an industry that is knowingly poisoning the population, either by the food being served, or the ideas being portrayed. Where I currently work is a bit like that, it feels like every meeting and event I go to, I'm being told how wonderful this company is. But when I look around and see the corruption and the sadness that is all around, it really makes me think.

It makes me think about why money is so important. Who decided that the world was to revolve around money? All money is worth is what the corporations and the government leaders say it's worth. A piece of paper that is worth five dollars doesn't mean anything. Five dollars can't even get you a nutritious meal nowadays. Why not put value in something valuable, like commodities?

Make it worth your time to get the things you want. Barter and trade with family and friends. I have a system in my family where we share things. We exchange recipes and we exchange ideas. If anyone needs help putting something together, they call a sibling, aunt, uncle or cousin. There is no money exchange, only time and attention. That is what's worth the most.

Going to work, especially if it's a job you don't like, is ridiculous. How can we ever evolve as a society when all we do is what we're expected? Personally, I'm working towards pursuing my passions in my spare time. Maybe I will be able to make money off of it, and maybe not. I am willing to alter my lifestyle to fit into what I want my life to be. I can't just quit my job off the bat, but I can work towards getting out of it. Every day that I pursue my passions, I work towards finding my future. Not just a future, because the future will come whether I want it to or not. But my future, where I'm content in the work I put into the world.

Where do you want your future to be when the future comes? Do you want to be sitting in an office doing unfulfilling work just to go home and be miserable? Or do you want to do something with your life? Make the change, follow your passion. Live your life to the fullest. You are worth it.

Peace and serenity,

Simply Me

Enjoy the Monday Musing series? Here's the rest of the posts:
Gardens
Happy thoughts
Automatic negative reactions
Thanksgiving
Sustainable eating
Contentment
Crutch or reason?

Compassionate Parenting: Resolving problems by encouraging independance

One of the actions you can choose that will ensure more co-operation than conflict in your home is to encourage your children to think things through for themselves and make their own choices.



Next time you are tempted to solve a problem your child is having, ask your child what his/her ideas are about how to solve it.

Each week I get a new tip in my e-mail from NonViolentCommunication.com, and each week when I read it I try to see the correlation between parent and child, and between other people. So far, each tip has been able to be related to both children and adults.
 
Which really does make sense, because children are just small adults, waiting to shine and trying to grow.
 
So how can we help children and adults grow? By nurturing them, treating them as equals, and letting them make their own mistakes about life. No one will learn a task the same way that you have, and that is perfectly alright. Each person needs to try things their own way to find their personal preferences and abilities to complete it.
 
Allowing others to try things their way when it's regarding something that you may be involved in can be a challenge. Even more so if you allow yourself to think that your method of doing things is better than anyone elses. Instead of trying to push someone towards the method or answer that you want, try instead to ensure that they have any and all the information required to make a truly educated decision.
 
Not only will this help them grow in terms of gaining abilities on how to do things, it will also grow the co-operativeness between the two of you, and it will allow the other person to be able to trust you to help without interfering.
 
The best gift you can give someone is the gift of your time with no strings attached.
 
Peace and serenity,
 
Simply Me

Enjoy the Compassionate Parenting series? Click the link for a full list from the series.

Wednesday's small step: Find your passion

Finding your passion can be both simple and extremely complex. But making the first move towards finding what your true passion is can be very simple and very liberating.

In the spirit of keeping things simple, I'm going to suggest one simple task for you this week to make that first move. I hope that you will try this task and let me know how it works for you so that I can continue to help you work towards the passionate life you deserve.

This week's simple step is to try something new with even just five minutes of your spare time. Look up something that you've always been at least a little bit interested in. Go outside and take a short walk just to enjoy the weather or scenery. Anything that you can imagine that would bring you some joy, just get up and devote yourself to it for five minutes.

Set a timer, if you want to. But you may find yourself ignoring the timer just to continue experiencing this simple pleasure.

And that's okay.

Let me know what you do, I look forward to hearing it.

Peace and serenity,

Simply Me

Enjoy the Small Steps series? Let me know what you think below.