There are still great prejudices about happiness at work, “doing what you love to make money. “As if there was something totally insignificant and utopian in these statements. I hung up on both sides: first I thought it was a discourse of irresponsible and spoiled people with meaningless idealism; then I came to believe it as an absolute truth.
Today, after a career transition process that took years, I realized that there is actually a tone in this color gamut, in fact, we have to meet our basic needs, feed ourselves, have a roof over our heads, guarantee existence. of a dignified life, which unfortunately a large part of the population has no protection. It’s the core, it’s about survival. There is no room to think of anything else when a dignified existence cannot be guaranteed.
- In other words: in fact.
- Isn’t speech as simple as prayer?Do what you like? But apart from this particular situation.
- What the suspects of happiness at work do not understand is that there is an intermediate path between suicide and deceiving.
Today I realize that: to seek a life with purpose?(which includes, but is not limited to the professional subject), is not irresponsible, on the contrary, it is a great responsibility towards oneself and one’s own happiness.
All of us, in this rich uniqueness that makes humanity so interesting, have our various skills, talents, gifts, inclinations, innate abilities, and we all also have a set of values, essential elements that animate us, that give meaning to life and guide us. our existence (and all this is very personal).
Working with goals means performing an activity that allows the development and evolution of our skills and talents in a way compatible with our values, stimulated by an adequate and healthy dose of challenges (and not efforts that translate into a “daily mortification of oneself” And yes, you can find more than one activity that respects these premises and still yields economically.
At this point, the notion of? FLUX? From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, this state of transcendence, total immersion in what one does, or even losing track of time, space and me: this does not arise from an “easy life” where you use your skills already perfectly mastered to do things effortlessly. To seek fluency is not to escape suffering, but to balance your skills and obstacles to overcome, to know that you are evolving and perfecting your potential and talents, facing proportional challenges.
The idea that “working is suffering” (as if staying in a work that violates our essence would return dignity and exorcise the money earned) there is a bit of this Christian imagination that imposes the notion of guilt, penance, sacrifice as a noble thing and on the other hand, there is also a great interest, economically speaking, that the vast majority simply shut up (and dream) and do what is necessary , to move this great money-generating machine (for a few), without worrying if all this makes sense (for nature, for society, for your community or even for your life).
I can’t and don’t want to believe that work comes down to enduring, giving up, a real aggression to our essence.
Those who live in harmony with their goal have serenity even in difficult moments, battles and sacrifices exist, but they do not harm us, because we know exactly why we are in this place, in this way, doing what we are doing. without automatic pilot, a robot without conscience, which acts according to what comes from the outside world and comfortably blames this same world for its misfortunes and problems. There is a full presence in every practice and activity of your day, there is a clear intention. .
This makes the trajectory a process that is appreciated when walking, and not only waiting for the price of joy and freedom at the end of the journey, it is not living. These are touching days like the one who tries not to let the soul die until the moment of climax, of enlightenment, when in the end all the sacrifice will be rewarded.
It is a cliché but it is true: living in the future does not bring joy, brings anxiety, brings suffering, especially because the future does not exist (and who knows if it will exist). Waiting to be happy tomorrow is to put such precious good in the dubious hands of the future.
Life must be a battle in which we believe, to want to make sense of work is not to have a naive vision of those who just want to have positive advantages and sides in the profession, it is to be aware of all the unsealings, but to feel them lighter because we believe in the chosen paths, it is a peace for those who are already happy to live in harmony with the truth and , therefore, the result itself is a consequence. Wanting to have happiness at work is one of the great tests of taking care of you.
Discover the work of Marian Koshiba, author of this article, on her Wandering Sentimentos page.