Published on 12, July, 2020
A few years ago, I said to my mentor, that I loved doing whatever I was doing. He said, that’s interesting, I only do what I love.
I had no idea what he was talking about at the time but I felt that he had said something profound, so I allowed this thought to sink in and once I realised what it meant, I also made the decision to do only what I love.
It was one of the best decisions I ever made because now, I do only what I love.
How many other people only do what they love and what is their reason for not doing what they love, if that’s the case.
It has created an interesting and exciting journey for me because prior to this, I didn’t really know what I loved doing, I’m still exploring that and it’s been fascinating to see how I’ve lived many years without a clue about what I loved doing. Now I love exploring and finding out what I love to do.
I like the idea of doing only what I love, but in real life you just often have to find what happiness you can in between the difficult bits, and sometimes in spite of them, when you can. For example, have a fairly monotonous job, in the laundry at a care home, but it pays the bills. And there is some satisfaction to be had, because I like to see everything left clean and neat, even if I know the baskets will be piled high with smelly laundry again the following day.
I have a family who sometimes drive me crazy, but who I love unconditionally. Sometimes I have to push myself to do things I don't like, but they have expanded my world.
You have to take the good with the bad, because that is how it is for everyone. By all means try to make your life better if you can, but sometimes you just have to work with what you have.
I don’t know if it’s posdible to make your life ‘better’ is it. What does that even mean, I don’t understand. How can one thing be better than another?
And what do you mean about finding happiness? Surely happiness is within you? How do you find it outside of you and where would you even begin to look for it? That sounds like a scary and exhausting prospect. Looking for something in the world when you don’t know where it is and we live in a big world, it could take a while. What does it even look like? And are you saying difficult things can’t equate to happiness? So that’s a bit of a clue when searching for happiness. Now we know it’s not found in things that are difficult! It’s a start I suppose.
I know what you mean about sometimes pushing yourself to do things you don’t want to do but doing them anyway because they expand your world. I do that but see it in a different way to you. I see it as pushing myself to do something new, which can be scary and can feel like it’s something I don’t want to do, but only because it’s something new and I don’t do well with change but if it’s giving me some benefit, then it is something I want to do. Although I rarely do that these days but I still do, such as now for instance, I’m going to have a bit of a wash before I go out. I don’t necessarily want to do that but I know I’ll feel better for it so I will.
I don’t know how to take the good with the bad because I don’t know the difference. Surely everything’s good and if we think something is bad, it’s only bad because it doesn’t meet a preference within us, but it doesn’t mean it’s ‘bad’, only to us in that moment relating to our particular preferences at that time. You said sometimes, you have to work with what you have, what do you do the rest of the time? Work with what you haven’t got? I don’t understand, working with what we have is the only thing we can do, surely, and what we have within us is the greatest power on earth. How can we ever have anything better than that?
Good point Flo .... I have often thought that if life were to be sunshine and roses all of the time, would we even appreciate it? Or do the difficult bits help us to see how wonderful the good bits can be?