Have you ever found yourself caught somewhere between giving enough of yourself to the machinery of the world to sustain a life, and holding enough of yourself back to actually experience it?
Lately, I’ve been uninspired. Lately, I’ve been thinking that I don’t want to be a servant who has to hide from a society that won’t take her work seriously unless she hides her human side and keeps the fun out of sight. That’s no authentic way to live.
I love what I do — both my day job and my creative ambitions. But your day job can quickly make life feel too monotonous when you don’t own the direction of it. When you have to play safer than most all the time in order to stay out of people’s mouths; when your thoughts, your opinions are subject to intense professional scrutiny. It’s as if you have to choose between living in hiding and making a living.
Some people often forget that behind every profession, there is a human being who is inevitably flawed.
My philosophy about work has always been a simple one, though complex to some. I’m a workaholic who must have fun. And that’s not a bad thing, but even dancing in public can be criticized. I do not want to spend my years exchanging my time for “the privilege” of simply existing, only to look back one day and realize I was so busy building a private life that I never had a chance to truly live it.
Luckily, I’ve always been someone who finds the courage to step outside of it, to be happy with her choices, to feel alive. Life is meant to be lived. It is meant to be more than simply “making it through.”
So, dear reader, I have some career advice for you: the only sure happy route is to work on your all-time passions in life. To quote a famous poetic line (attributed to Charles Bukowski):
Find what you love and let it kill you.